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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: 1, Touché) by hemocyanin on Friday January 15 2021, @09:52PM (15 children)
Point made.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Friday January 15 2021, @10:09PM (14 children)
The boy doth quote himself! Very small bubble, very small. But you do nazi you, hemo!
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by hemocyanin on Friday January 15 2021, @10:15PM (13 children)
Point made again.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Friday January 15 2021, @10:25PM (7 children)
Yes, the bubble is closing in! Get out, while you can, hemo! We don't want you becoming Buffalo Horn Hat Guy!
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Friday January 15 2021, @10:52PM (6 children)
No chance of that. I'm an atheist. He is somewhat amusing though: https://imgur.com/t4mDuoe [imgur.com]
"sound actually proceeds electromagnetic activity ... so when you sing and drum especially when you do so really loudly, you affect the quantum realm ..." Buffalo Horn Hat Guy
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday January 16 2021, @12:03AM (5 children)
Yep, instead of a pardon and organic jail food, I think he needs psychiatric care. But you yourself are getting close to that as well, my dear hemo!
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:50AM (4 children)
That guy was one random life event away between rioting for Antifa or being a Qdude. Same mindset, different religion.
(Score: 2, Touché) by aristarchus on Saturday January 16 2021, @05:00AM (3 children)
Nah, and you know it, hemo. Crazy only bends one way, and that is toward the right. Pol Pot? Right wing authoritarian, under a Maoist cover. Any other questions, Boomer?
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 16 2021, @10:05AM (2 children)
Not a boomer.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday January 16 2021, @10:53AM (1 child)
Oh, shit? Pre-Boomer? Or just an idiot right-wing nut-job of any generation? Admit it, hemo, you are a Nazi left over from the previous Nazis. Actual Nazis. OK, crypto-Boomer?
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 16 2021, @08:01PM
point made again, again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @10:46PM (4 children)
walks like a duck, quacks like a duck
gee it's a duck!
Personally I don't think hemo is an actual nazi type, just an idiot possibly with creeping dementia that watches Fox News and still can't put 2 + 2 together to realize he is constantly defending nazis. Being an old white male he has been sold a persecution complex that is laughably absurd.
Details may be off in reality since we're communicating via 100 symbols, but that is the caricature he portrays. Calling him a nazi or a nazi supporter may be accurate, but it just feeds into that persecution complex and has him double down. Reality by damned!!!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday January 15 2021, @11:16PM (3 children)
Look who's the nazi now! The old "2+2=4" thing is an "attack phrase" -- you need to decolonize your math if you want to be a lefty: https://twitter.com/ESMathTeacher/status/1290680121024684032 [twitter.com]
Background: https://arcdigital.media/mathgate-or-the-battle-of-two-plus-two-ed4af5f32933 [arcdigital.media]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @11:45PM (2 children)
HA!
I try and give you some benefit of the doubt even though you have displayed a sickening level of support for the insurrectionists and this is how you respond? Whatever you cantankerous fart, you traitor to democracy, you lover of racists. We see what you are by your response to the insurrection.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:47AM (1 child)
Just saying, you used the idiom "2+2=4". That means you are a nazi by left-authoritarian standards. Read the backgrounder -- I'm not even joking. I'm just pointing out how insane the left-authoritarians are and if you think you can escape that, think again. You already screwed up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @05:02AM
No, no! It is the 2X4 upside your head, hemo! Also known as a "clue stick"? Do not you Pine for the days of 3X5 studs? I know you do!