SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
'No longer acceptable' for platforms to take key decisions alone, EU Commission says
It is "no longer acceptable" for social media giants to take key decisions on online content removals alone, following the high profile takedowns of US President Trump's accounts on Facebook and Twitter, the European Commission has said.
Trump's accounts have been suspended by the two platforms for inciting calls to violence ahead of the violent riots that hit Washington's Capitol Hill last week.
Speaking to lawmakers on Monday (11 January), Prabhat Agarwal, an official who heads up the eCommerce unit at the European Commission's DG Connect, noted how the EU executive's Digital Services Act attempts to realign the balance between effective content removal and preserving freedom of expression online.
"It is no longer acceptable in our view that platforms take some key decisions by themselves alone without any supervision, without any accountability, and without any sort of dialogue or transparency for the kind of decisions that they're taking," Agarwal said.
"Freedom of expression is really a key value in this," he told the European Parliament's internal market committee.
The comments came following concerns raised by some lawmakers in the European Parliament following the suspension of Trump's social media accounts. In doing so, platforms giants had demonstrated that they yield a disproportionate degree of power over the freedom of speech online.
"The fact that platforms like Twitter and Facebook decide who can speak freely is dangerous," Green MEP Kim van Sparrentak said.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 15 2021, @04:35PM (13 children)
In the US we have public education. Socialism!
Some socialist countries have a better standard of living than we do.
I am NOT saying I want to turn the US into a socialist country. I'm just saying we already practice some socialism and not all socialist countries are bad.
As for communism, I can only say this: Communism only works:
1. in Heaven, where it isn't needed
2. in Hell, where they already have it and always will have it
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Tokolosh on Friday January 15 2021, @04:48PM (11 children)
Public education in the US? Thanks for making my case for me. Dollar per benefit, it is the most inefficient system devised, exceeded only by the healthcare system and the military-industrial complex.
Countries have varying degrees of socialism. The ones that have an better standard of living than the US, are ones that are less socialist with stronger free markets. The truth that cannot be spoken by left or right, is that the US is remarkably socialist. Just read the headlines today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:06PM (2 children)
Can I introduce you to the DoD, if you think that the public education system is inefficient, the DoD is an order of magnitude of orders of magnitude worse. They'll literally lose entire pallets of cash and nobody with any power seems to think this is a problem.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mhajicek on Friday January 15 2021, @05:36PM
It's working as intended. It's extremely efficient in its true objective of funneling money into certain pockets.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:53PM
They don't see it as a problem because they know exactly where those pallets of money went: To bribing local warlords. The bribes themselves were all off the books so that no warlord would know (and complain about) if or how much any of the others got paid.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday January 15 2021, @05:08PM (2 children)
When I was in public schools (mid 60s to end of 70s) public education actually did work.
The biggest discipline problems were:
* chewing gum
* talking out of turn
* and OMG running in the hallways
Kids watches Sesame Street.
Now:
* pregnancy
* rape
* drugs
* school shootings
Kids watched Barney purple dinosaur
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:58PM (1 child)
I went to school in the 90/00s. It was the same stuff. Pregnancy, drugs, and school shootings didn't used to happen, because most people didn't go to school that long. In the 60s, 40% of workers didn't have high school diplomas, nowadays 40% have 4 year degrees.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday January 17 2021, @12:49AM
The workers that didn't have a diploma in the '60s were school aged in the '50s.
The students in school in the '60s and '70s didn't enter the workforce until the late '70s or '80s. My own time in school from early '70s to late '80s saw practically everyone graduating (some a year late), no shootings, no rapes, 1 pregnancy, and a fair sized minority into pot. There was one half-hearted knife fight.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday January 15 2021, @05:47PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 17 2021, @07:37PM
"much of the other 96% of the world is doing a whole load of these things just fine."
yeah, right, you dumb tub of shit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 15 2021, @08:11PM (1 child)
So if we have the least socialism and the worst education system, what would that imply?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @08:49AM
If... socialism... weighs the same as a duck, it's made of wood.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday January 15 2021, @09:57PM
And yet, when anyone suggests we should do something more like one of those other countries with a better standard of living, the GOP screams OMG SOCIALISM!!! So which is it?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 15 2021, @06:28PM
Does anybody read the last chapter of the Little Red Book? It has a rather happy ending.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..