Germany has followed through on its proposal to make social networks remove slanderous hate speech and fake news or face massive fines.
The nation's Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz (Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection) has announced that cabinet approved a plan to force social network operators to create a complaints mechanism allowing members of the public to report content that online translate-o-tronic services categorise as "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats."
The Bill approved by Cabinet proposes that social networks be required to establish complaints officer who is subject to local law and gets the job of removing obviously criminal content 24 hours after receiving a complaint. A seven-day deadline will apply to content that's not immediately identifiable as infringing. Social networks will also be required to inform complainants of the outcome of their takedown requests and to provide quarterly summaries of their activities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @11:44AM (3 children)
Everyone needs to move, to protect their freedoms.
The time is near.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:05PM (2 children)
given the cameroon thing, prepare also a sneakernet and a mesh...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:24PM (1 child)
cameroon?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:34PM
cameroon?
Cameroon [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:13PM (3 children)
What in "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats." actually covers Fake news?
Seems like lies are still allowed, except when they are insults, libel, slander or public prosecutions (crimes/threats are not fake news... I hope).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:58PM
What in "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats." actually covers Fake news?
You're questioning the ambiguity? That's a crime!
Maybe they mean anything that is fake and contains "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats."?
This whole thing sounds like it's ripe for abuse and will result in a lot of takedowns/removals to err on the side of caution but they'll eventually get restored. This is perfect for trying to get a real story out of the news until things settle down and the next distraction comes along.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 08 2017, @03:11PM (1 child)
Well, if you look at the actual proposed law, you'll see it's does not define what's legal and what not. It just says that if something is illegal to post, then any social network must delete it when notified about it, and there have to be ways to report illegal content that actually work, and they have to report about their deletion policies and how much they delete. Oh, and they have to have someone employed who's responsible for all this.
So if something is illegal to post after passing this law, it already was illegal to post it before passing this law. And if you want to make it legal to post specific content that's currently illegal, you don't have to fight this law, but instead you have to fight whatever law it is that currently make that specific content illegal.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 08 2017, @03:41PM
Or one could just wipe out the capability for the state to meddle in the communication between citizens.
No need to fight anything like the opponent intended.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:47PM (6 children)
That's a fascinating concept.
The Bill approved by Cabinet proposes that social networks be required to establish complaints officer who is subject to local law...
Are they really trying to force companies to to provide a local presence to sacrifice to the authorities?
translate-o-tronic
Where can I get one of those?
Are things really this ridiculous over there in Europe?
With the internet being so easy to shut down, it's not nearly living up to its promise. I can only hope that ad hoc mesh networking can shut down this stupid argument of what can and cannot be transmitted.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:10PM
"Are things really this ridiculous over there in Europe?"
Not yet atleast. Germany can go to hell. Normal people don't want that kind complete bullshit, which can never be justily enforced. Court order is understandable, but fuck automatic bullshit programs, or even most whiners, who do not know what is what.
Had i a social service, Germans would be booted this second.
(Score: 1) by C R Johnson on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:34PM (2 children)
Who the hell would take that job? You would really have be in love with yourself, status, power, and oblivious to the risk to your own freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:52PM (1 child)
There are people that work with torture in Chinese facilities right now.
In the Pinochet torture chambers.
Persons to turn in people that had the wrong ideas in the communist block.
Other staffed extermination camps in WWII and then went to their family life in the evenings.
Turkish army staff to exterminate Armenians.
There are always some morally defunct individuals to do whatever evil deed their master asks them too. Some even believe it's for the good..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:31PM
There are always some morally defunct individuals to do whatever evil deed their master asks them too. Some even believe it's for the good..
I think it's the opposite. In my experience at least, people who are the most evil feel they have a mandate from their god to do the evil they wish to do.
Look at Christians and Moslems for plenty of examples.
Only by being convinced of the righteousness of their actions can they frame objection to their actions as attempts to deceive them by the "true" evil, which makes them all the more fervent.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday April 09 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
It is easy to do - don't provide a local presence and you will be forbidden to operate in their country. All countries do it, they have this thing called 'laws' that you have to comply with when you are in, or have commercial interests in, that country.
The social media companies will comply - they want the money and this is simply a minor pimple on the highway to profit.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 10 2017, @01:06AM
Their laws only apply within their borders. And either way, I support anybody/anything that will bust through any national firewalls to make censorship more difficult, or better, impossible. The law is an ass, capricious and arbitrary. I do not sympathize with the authorities in any way. Censorship is just plain evil. The sooner we can stop it, the better. Circumvention [soylentnews.org] is key. Let's make the internet rout around the damage. Arguing about it is stupid.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:42PM (2 children)
The peoples Führer Merkel department of Truth just made a top recruitment of former Stasi [eurocanadian.ca] agent Anetta Kahane. All citizens are expected to report any person thinking in any unapproved way for re-education.
Mentioning of the 2017 vehicle-ramming attack in Stockholm will perhaps be forbidden because it may point out groups that may not be criticized? especially considering who got caught and what people from that country believes in..
I know there's very smart people in the technology community. Let's have these censorship tendencies thwarted unceremoniously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:48PM (1 child)
Look - Islamic terror attacks have nothing to do with Islam. Repeat after me: War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:26PM
You forgot.. Diversity is strength! ;-)
Except for diversity in thought and ideas..
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:20PM (8 children)
To decentralize social networking.
It's a shame that Diaspora [diasporafoundation.org] hasn't gained more acceptance.
However, it's not so surprising, given that almost every ISP cripples upload speeds and implements abusive TOS which restricts the utility of decentralization.
That kills freedom and puts us in the situation where a government can force a couple of companies to enforce censorship over millions.
Using Diaspora (there are many others too) as a model, one can privately host content and federate it with other content without corporate or government rent seeking and interference.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:38PM
Hmm, perhaps it's up to those of us who have been able to hang on to a middle class existence to buy hosting and provide endpoints to distributed platforms.
Granted, then hosting providers become the weak link, but it's at least a degree better than completely centralized services.
I run an IRC server on my server in the clouds, although it's only used by close friends. I used to run an XMPP server as well but it wasn't used at all after Google (Talk) and Facebook (Messenger) stopped federating their servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:48PM (6 children)
Whatever you come up with, it will be 1,000 nerds and libertarians using it while the general public uses the platform they can upload videos on.
Your slogan will be "Decentralize Fake News!" Except the public doesn't want fake news.
Don't forget the social child porn.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:35PM (5 children)
Actually 1000 nerds might be more useful to listen to than 100 000 lolcat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:05PM (4 children)
No, all those thousand nerds will be automatically suspected of hacking, terrorism, and child pornography. The news anchors will say, "Anarchist hackers have set up their own dark social network on the darkweb to hide their dark secret perversions and plans to commit dark acts of terror." Everyone will believe it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:33PM (3 children)
Except that mainstream media is about to loose their intelligent viewership, and trust.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:45PM (1 child)
Surely it lost those a long time ago?
"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 Sunday April 09 2017, @01:14AM
"Surely it loost those a long time ago"
FTFY
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday April 09 2017, @01:06AM
For my part, already gone.
It's only a contest between PR mavens now. Facts, journalism, and integrity are long gone.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:30PM
RIP freedom of speech. You were awesome while they let you live. Thanks for all the memories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:30PM (2 children)
insults and public prosecutions? please, germany drag merkel through the street then hang her carcass in the town square..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:42PM (1 child)
Don't forget Canada with their blasphemy law [wikipedia.org] from 2017. Right there with Iran and other nice company .. ;->
Soon enough all Germans will greet each others using Merkels name. And the Bundesregierung will mysteriously go up in flame. But don't worry, der Merkel knows it's those evil racists. So of course they can't be on the streets anymore. Instead camping grounds outside cities will be setup where people that believe in something, like stoning of un-believers will teach them about peace, a lot of peace.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday April 09 2017, @03:23AM
Oh no, government condemning bigotry. A motion to condemn something is different then a law.