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'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, @07:45PM (3 children)
Let's just think a bit more about this massive conspiracy.
Much of America is small towns. Where everyone knows one another. Strangers are very obvious.
How would a vast conspiracy manage to infiltrate every single small town voting precinct? And keep it quiet -- 100% of the time, without fail.
How would the learn how the various checks and balances and security mechanisms work at each local voting and counting place? How would you engineer a way to flip votes or miscount votes at every one of these locations? With so many eyes (and cameras) watching?
How is it that all of these precincts certified their elections. Presumably all the local people knew who the vote counters were. Probably go to church / school / work with them. Other people (both parties) carefully watching. The local people would know who is ultimately in charge of presiding over the election, and declaring the certified outcome. And that person would know all the people he/she is communicating with about the entire process. Strangers would stick out.
How would you do this at scale in so many different small towns in so many different regions? In the mountains? The desert? The plains? Farming communities?
It boggles the mind that such a vast conspiracy could even exist, let alone be kept secret.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:24PM
"My gut feeling is that most conspiracy theorists have never been project managers. Their optimism is adorable..."
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 16 2021, @02:24AM (1 child)
You don't need small towns, You only need about a dozen key high-population counties.
And when +1200 people are willing to sign an affidavit attesting to witnessing what they believed was fraud (remember, lying on an affidavit is a felony) seems to me those affidavits should at least be examined, whether you believe anything nefarious happened or not.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 17 2021, @12:00AM
Seems like it would be easier to bribe 1200 people to simply lie or stretch the truth than run a conspiracy across hundreds of different counties. As usual rightwing nuttery is projection, as evident from how Trump's accusations and lawsuits always targeted communities with larger numbers of minorities and democrats. Can't believe you nutters are still in the Qult.