No Country Should Be Making Speech Rules for the World

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/no-country-should-be-making-speech-rules-world

by mdp2021 • 2 years ago

80 34 2 years ago

jmclnx• 2 years ago

So a country of 28 million wants to tell the 8+ billion people what to see ? Good luck with that.

If X (twitter) shuts their doors in Australia, it would be just a blip on its bottom line, but people in Australia will probably toss the existing Gov out of the country :)

Will be interesting to watch.

beeboobaa32• 2 years ago

US bigcorps are already making such decisions for the rest of the world constantly.

kevin_thibedeau2• 2 years ago

On their servers, as is their right.

theshackleford• 2 years ago

lol your dreaming.

eynsham• 2 years ago

I suspect that Labor will lose the next federal elections, but what makes you think that /Twitter/ of all things would make the difference? (Or is the conditional not meant to be read that way)?

vkou3• 2 years ago

You grossly overestimate how much of a crap people give about twitter.

Tiktok has orders of magnitude more engagement, and the US can just ban it with the stroke of a pen, with no political blowback.

toast0• 2 years ago

People who use twitter have an over exagerated sense of how many people use twitter. I think, in part, because of how many media people use(d) it.

But there's a ton of people out there who would at best not care if it disappeared, and more likely be happy that everyone stopped asking people to follow them on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

jacobn• 2 years ago

Can we all agree to just call it X-Twitter? Clear & concise.

MiguelX413• 2 years ago

I think it helps to show user numbers to such people to bring them back to reality.

jsheard2• 2 years ago

Something similar already happened with a censorship demand made by India: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/twitter-takes-down-po...

The difference being that when a country of 1.4 billion asked Twitter to jump, Twitter asked "how high?"

legostormtroopr• 2 years ago

The difference here is India demanded the tweets be blocked in India. I don't agree with that, but they are enforcing Indian laws for Indian citizens within India.

The Australian government is demanding tweets be blocked for Australians everywhere, including Australian's using VPNs or Australians overseas - effectively claiming that Australian law has jurisdiction globally, and turning this into a global censorship demand.

Thats why the EFF has stepped in.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/business/twitter-india-la...

techjamie2• 2 years ago

They also know Australia isn't petty enough to ban Twitter over a video. Now India on the other hand? They absolutely are that petty because they're profitable as hell and they know it, so they can get what they want.

Staple_Diet3• 2 years ago

The video in question is a recording of a terrorist attack, a stabbing of a priest in a church. The video gives no missing context to the incident, and risks being used as recruiting material if allowed to disseminate. But hey, if you want to defend people's right to view content like this then go ahead. Personally I think it's irresponsible of X, or any platform, to allow such content.

Also as others mentioned, X is not as prolific as you think, especially since the rebrand, and withdrawing from the AU market would just create more space for its competitors to take over. The sentiment here after a few recent public stabbing attacks would be in favour of the Govt, not a murder-porn platform.

techjamie2• 2 years ago

The problem is it never just stops at terrorists.

See also: The US spying on every citizen, and international communication, in the name of maybe they'll find a terrorist in there somewhere.

000ooo000• 2 years ago

Downvoted for the final remark amounting Twitter to a "murder-porn platform". It is obviously a bit disingenuous to suggest that is its primary purpose.

daft_pink• 2 years ago

It’s an interesting question, because effectively if there is no authority that can ban content from the internet, it means that nothing can be removed from the internet.

Consider censorship that most people would agree with such as revenge porn. If no country can remove it then it is essentially unremovable, while most people think that it should be removed.

But when any country limits something that we feel should not be censored then no one wants there is this backlack like in this case.

It’s hard to determine the correct choice.

vkou3• 2 years ago

The correct choice is easy.

Each country is free to set whatever media laws it wants, by whatever political process it does so. If any particular transnational doesn't want to comply with them, it's free to sod off. If what they provided is valuable, some domestic competitor who is in legal compliance can take over the market.

robertlagrant• 2 years ago

Exactly. Sadly, people who elect authoritarian governments will get the attendant speech laws.

Zak• 2 years ago

The jurisdiction where content is hosted has the legal ability to remove it. A multinational company with a presence in a jurisdiction can also be ordered to prevent access within that jurisdiction to content it hosts elsewhere to the best of its ability.

That does create a dilemma for a country that wants to prevent its citizens from accessing content hosted by a company without a presence there. Their only real option is a great firewall of X.

vkou3• 2 years ago

That does create a dilemma for a country that wants to prevent its citizens from accessing content hosted by a company without a presence there. Their only real option is a great firewall of X.

Which is fine. If I have no business relationship with anyone in country X, if I am not present in country X, I do not intend to ever travel to country X, and I am not hosting my stuff in country X, I don't give two figs about their laws.

They are free to block me if they want, with whatever mechanism (fine-tuned, or crude) they want - but I'm not responsible for my http server responding to GET and POST requests from their country (Unless my country has embargoed them), just like an author is not responsible for a citizen of X reading their books (That are banned in X.)

This is just basic state sovereignty stuff.

SuperNinKenDo2• 2 years ago

A million stands the Australian government could have taken on the global stage and this is the one that they choose. I feel so embarrassed these days and I didn't even vote for these people (nor the Coalition might I add).

mdp20212• 2 years ago

I didn't even vote for these people

Have you not? One of my disagreements with the Australian ways is that - to the best of my information - you are obliged, during voting, to express your preference for _all_ candidates - as a ranking voting system mandating the inclusion of all the options in the list of preferences.

So, if you had, "good, acceptable, bad, unacceptable, areyoujoking", you are mandated to implicitly express some degree of preference including "unacceptable" and "areyoujoking" - which is absurd.

SuperNinKenDo2• 2 years ago

I expected this nit-pick to come sooner. Yes, technically my preferences devolved to them at some point, and yes, Labor were a few steps from the bottom while the Coalition were a few steps closer to the bottom.

The preferencing system is great and I would not suggest that there is anything seriously wrong with it. Primary votes are counted separately, so there's still information available to challenge notions of popular mandate if it's important. While part of me does wish there was some way of signalling that I want my preferences to stip devolving at a certain point, I'd take this over most other systems any day of the week.

_carbyau_• 2 years ago

As an Australian I was disappointed with the attempt to censor the world - mainly because of the reasoning.

Commish: Ban seeing this video in Australia!

X: OK

Commish: Oh no, VPNs exist! Australians might use them. We'll have to go Super Saiyan then!

This is dumb. I dislike but can understand the motivations for implementing basic protections for the innocent. I understand people don't want innocent kids to stumble over this video and they ask for the government to nanny them. I'd argue this isn't the way but still - I get it.

But once you are at the point of using a VPN you have deliberately sidestepped "protections" and thus have "asked for it".

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

No Country Should Be Making Speech Rules for the World

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