BF2S Forums Freedom of Speech, the Internet, and You

No, they are inconsistently informed on the goings on of AOC's career. But one thing's for sure, she's out of her element! I think it's currently Pelosi who wants to round up Republicans and put them in camps.

Germany and France meanwhile have laws against hate speech. They should hush.

Bloomberg wrote:

Germany and France attacked Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. after U.S. President Donald Trump was shut off from the social media platforms, in an extension of Europe’s battle with big tech.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies.

of course she would, the fasade - and, incidentally, her own position - must be maintained. everybody must take the long road of going to lobbyists and buying the services of those lawmakers - and then whoever buys the most gets to to set the rules governing free speech or whatever else they want. that's how <checks notes> vibrant democracy works there.

That's part of the reason, yes, US companies are very dominating in the EU market. But there have also been justified concerns about stifling competition and in the handling of data.

Merkel's and other government's position is simply to protect their own authority vis a vis the private sector and the digital space as they want to prevent twitter from setting a precedent. But it's not as though twitter is truly wrong here, the subject of misinformation has been discussed in parliamentary working groups and on a bureaucratic level for at least 10 years yet there's a neverending impasse. Especially in the US it seems. So of course at some point you have to consider doing something about it and if nothing else that one action will help actually stimulate debates on what should/shouldn't be allowed in the public space and who's responsible for it.

Shahter your notion of the power of lobbyism is completely off the mark here, but whatever. It's just a new extension of your capitalism sucks dogma.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-01-14 06:15:09)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Germany and France attacked Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. after U.S. President Donald Trump was shut off from the social media platforms, in an extension of Europe’s battle with big tech.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … roblematic

It's hilarious to me hearing old farts make sweeping pronouncements about a platform they don't really seem to understand.

It's an empty accusation. Twitter is not making rules about free speech by banning users. It sucks if you're a homebody and facebook was the only method you used to talk to friends and family, but there are many other ways. Even if facebook/twitter/etc. were nationalized (don't you dare call for this, Republicans, etc.), I imagine there would still be rules users had to abide by. And that things like the endless trolling and threats on such a platform might be taken more seriously by law enforcement, similar to harassing a clerk at a DMV adjoined to a sheriff's station.

Has Merkel ever spoken up about lowly commoners getting banned on social media, getting their free speech "taken away?" Only Trump's?

Twitter etc are part of the fabric now, BF2S probably not.

But I guess we can just uninvent modern media and politicians can go back to making speeches from the end of railcars.

What if I told you - the internet is how people communicate these days.

I mean, aren't half your posts twitter links and a one word comment?

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-01-15 00:55:38)

Dilbert_X wrote:

What if I told you - the internet is how people communicate these days.

I mean, aren't half your posts twitter links and a one word comment?

and what if i told you that every media channel and method of communication available to politicians in the past has been equally free to accept or reject a politician’s words?

did the times run articles from jeremy corbyn? how often do you see a quality nigel farage editorial in the guardian?

twitter’s administration is nothing like so political. they ask for a bare community minimum involving the law and personal safety. and i already detailed the huge efforts they went to in recent months to go beyond that to hold trump’s many statements accountable after he began using twitter to discredit an election and incite violence.

o m G b b b b but my guys need to be heard

you were the one who kept banging on about the spirit of the forum, trying to sound grandiloquent, not me. i guess because you’re as historically illiterate in understanding the concept as with any number of other things that you’d rather retract the analogy: okay, fine with me.

i’ve been on twitter for 12 years or so. you don’t have to tell me what it is or what era we’re living in. i’m more au fait with these networks than you are.

trump was an aberration and a one-off. politicians do not use twitter to connect to their base in anything like the same way. trump literally raised an army of insurrectionists. it’s a cult. he has used twitter to bypass editorial scrutiny, fact checking standards, and basic laws of publication; no newspaper or tv media could conscionably reproduce the stuff he scatter-sprayed all over twitter. even fox news eventually had to start cutting him off and heavily disclaiming the things he was saying.

he has become dangerous and his direct appeals to his followers, via twitter and rallies, is his whole mode. what other politician conducts politics in this way today in a self-respecting democratic state? when trump is feeling cornered, he goes on twitter. when trump sees his ratings dip, he stages some rallies. it’s populism, straight up. it has become a danger to the very fabric of representative democracy. trump was using twitter for months to try and discredit a legal election. the president of the united states used twitter to denounce his vice-president and incite a mob against him ffs.

trump has always been against ‘MSM’ and old democratic norms. now he literally has a cult of followers who are prepared to die for him, who exist totally outside of the ‘mainstream’ world of fact.

and still you’re pretending like politicians on twitter is the nature of democracy now. jesus christ look at the twitter feeds of No. 10. of macron. of merkel. it’s just dry, stale, officialese, another online channel for their public statements. not comparable in the slightest.

it would be interesting to chart trump’s downward spiral with twitter. 4/5 years ago he was using it every day to comment on celebrity gossip. remember when he gave relationship advice to robert pattinson and that girl from twilight?

Last edited by uziq (2021-01-15 01:26:42)

er, yes, i do much prefer their approach to communications than trump and populism. i don't care what their agenda or politics are. they are upholding an office of state and behaving with something like objectivity and propriety.

trump-on-twitter turned the world's most powerful elected office into a place for stropping and teenage moodswings. with 40 million people with guns watching and feeding off it. no thanks.

please stop pretending this way of using twitter is 'the future' of democracy or the new normal. it is not. too bad for you, evidently.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Twitter etc are part of the fabric now, BF2S probably not.

But I guess we can just uninvent modern media and politicians can go back to making speeches from the end of railcars.

Dilbert, you can lose your driver's license if you disobey the rules in a certain way. There are things you can do instead, like call an Indian cab driver.

Twitter is NOT a government institution. While social media companies should be subject to certain regulations, maybe once they reach a certain size, they should otherwise be free to make and enforce their own rules about content posted to their platform. Twitter being bigger than BF2S isn't really relevant.

Trump has plenty of means at his disposal to Get the Word Out. He can find another platform or pay for his own.