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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 turgid on Friday January 15 2021, @09:02PM (2 children)
I agree. I love it when the stupid make fools of themselves in public, and sun light is a very good disinfectant but... and it's a big but, this only works if there is at least an equal and opposite reaction from the other side to restore some sort of balance.
My experience in the last five years has been that the side of the stupid, the ignorant, the belligerent and the selfish has far outstripped the ability of the natural opposite view to compensate. It's an open secret that Project Alt-Wrong in the Anglosphere has had paid trolls on its side. In fact, it's not really a secret at all. Credible professional independent journalists have investigates and reported on the phenomenon.
When one side has highly-motivated and wealthy individuals, with professional trolls and the other mostly has amateurs and ordinary concerned citizens, it's not a fair fight.
We, the world, are in the process of learning a painful lesson. Things must change.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday January 16 2021, @12:46AM (1 child)
I did what I could. Unfortunately, there was a statistically impossible conspiracy by Buffalo Horn Hat Mighty Buzzard to censor aristarchus. Now, alt that is over, as you can see here:
The Alt-Right Is Now the Entire Right [soylentnews.org]
And, here:
The Alt-Right Is Now the Entire Right (Revised, all fixed! ) [soylentnews.org]
And most recently, here:
The Alt-Right Is Now the Entire Right (Moar Revised, even more fixed! Hope this meets with your t [soylentnews.org]
And not at all here:
Baked Alaska is cooked! [soylentnews.org]
Turns out the broad brush was the proper one, eh, Buzzard?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by turgid on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:16PM
And we appreciate it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].