EU and "hate speech"

[Malcolm]

Let the uphill ice skating begin.

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech,” Vĕra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, wrote in the European Commission press release. “Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalise young people and racist use to spread violence and hatred. This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected.”

Tech companies will have to find the right balance between freedom of expression and hateful content. Based on the code of conduct, they’ll have dedicated teams reviewing flagged items (poor employees who will have to review awful things every day).

Tech companies will also educate their users and tell them that it’s forbidden to post hateful content. They’ll cooperate with each other to share best practice. They’ll encourage flagging of hateful content and they’ll promote counter speech against hateful rhetoric.

So you're going to rely on the tech companies to determine what is and isn't "hateful" and have them do the censoring? Christ on a crutch. The lyrics to most songs since the '80s could probably qualify.

See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire

No word on when Mark Knopfler will be sued to record a new version of "Money for Nothing."

Then you've got the dudes at Periscope doing it on their own.

[TPRJones]

Not a chance in hell this will happen. For one the costs per week to pay the half-million employees needed to monitor every tweet on Twitter alone would be far more then the entire value of the company. If the EU tries to enforce this sort of thing they'll just find their country is no longer able to access those social media websites because doing business there profitably is simply impossible.

The only compromise I can think of that might happen would be an automated system where anyone can flag something as objectionable, and everyone in the country of that person that registered the complaint no longer has access to that content. Of course it will be abused, and the only reasonable way for a business to deal with that problem is to have a policy not to review anything, just make it all automated and if the EU can no longer see any of the content because of all the flagging abuse tough shit.