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NegativeLookBehind ,
@NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world avatar

Yes

ASDraptor ,

Yes, please!!

alphacyberranger ,
@alphacyberranger@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m genuinely surprised why the UK haven’t already

wewbull ,

Under what law?

UK currently holds the people that post things liable for their own words. X, the platform, just relays what is said. Same as Lemmy. Same as Mastodon.

If you ban X I don’t see why those other platforms wouldn’t be next.

Now should people/organisations/companies leave X? Absolutely! Evacuate like it’s a house of fire. Should it be shut down by legal means? No.

skvlp ,

I agree. It would set a terrible precedent, even if it’s terribly tempting. I’d say it’s better to ask people to leave instead.

Chozo ,

An argument being made in another social media case (involving TikTok) is that algorithmic feeds of other users' content are effectively new content, created by the platform. So if Twitter does anything other than a chronological sorting, it could be considered to be making its own, deliberately-produced content, since they're now in control of what you see and when you see it. Depending on how the TikTok argument gets interpreted in the courts, it could possibly affect how Twitter can operate in the future.

todd_bonzalez ,
@todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee avatar

That argument is being made in the USA, not the UK.

motherjones.com/…/federal-court-tiktok-230-liable…

jaybone ,

Let’s say this goes through, how is a company going to prove it is not using an “algorithmic feed” unless they open source their code and/or provide some public interface to test and validate feed content?

Plus, even without an “algorithmic feed”, couldn’t some third party using bots control a simple chronological or upvote/like-based feed? And then those third parties, via contracts and agreements, would manipulate the content rather than the social media owner itself.

Toribor ,
@Toribor@corndog.social avatar

unless they open source their code and/or provide some public interface to test and validate feed content

This honestly seems like a good idea. I think one of the ways to mitigate the harm of algorithmically driven content feeds is openness and transparency.

jaybone ,

Well for the end users and any regulators it’s a great idea. But the companies aren’t going to go along with this.

wewbull ,

It’s certainly arguable that the algorithm constitutes an editorial process and so that opens them up to libel laws and to liability.

Fair point.

daddy32 ,

Twitter (or rather musk) chooses what it “relays” or boosts. Unlike lemmy, unlike Mastodon.

hanrahan ,
@hanrahan@slrpnk.net avatar

The Australian Government issued a bunch of take down notices to Twitter and Musk said no

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-23/…/103752600

Musk decided to block them in Australian only which didn’t satisfy the Australian Government

He took them to court and the court sided with Twitter, (x)

variety.com/…/australian-court-elon-musk-x-freedo…

The complexity and contradictions were illustrated by Tim Begbie, the lawyer representing the eSafety Commissioner in court. He said that in other cases X had chosen of its own accord to remove content, but that it resisted the order from the Australian government.

“X says […] global removal is reasonable when X does it because X wants to do it, but it becomes unreasonable when it is told to do it by the laws of Australia,” Begbie told the court.

OldWoodFrame ,

Here’s the thing about nation state governments. They can pass laws. It’s kind of the main thing they do.

echodot ,

They retain authority by having some air of legitimacy. They can’t just change laws, there has to be a due process just changing laws without a process is literally a dictatorship.

echodot ,

I’m sure they would like to but they don’t really have the authority.

OldWoodFrame ,

It wasn’t like a law banning X. They were Court ordered to do something and they didn’t do it.

Could that happen in other countries? I mean sure but not the way you’re implying.

octoturt ,

unfortunately i still have to side against national firewalls even when i think they’re extremely funny

echodot ,

I initially agreed with you but this is a bit different. Actually haven’t banned anything it’s just a court order so it wasn’t done because some politician decided it should happen it was done because of things that Twitter chose to do, or not do as the case may be.

Presumably this won’t be permanent provided the capitulate.

powerofm ,

I think they don’t have a literal national firewall, rather they demanded every single ISP in the country to block the domain.

deathmetal27 ,

I hope so.

0x0 ,

Again, you’d be shooting the messenger.

Also, the double-standards are stupid: countries in the Middle East block social media - bad; Brazil blocks X - good. Elon’s an asshole but that’s not the way you do things. If X is in the wrong what the government should to is apply a hefty fine. Or sue them. Or both.

emax_gomax ,

Elon just wouldn’t pay and sueing generally ends in a fine which Elon would again not pay. Eventually a blanket ban is the only effective solution if a company refuses to get along.

0x0 ,

That’s your excuse? Weak. And very poor policy… He won’t do it let’s skip due process and go full censorship 'cos Musk’s easy to hate. Weird legal system that is…

First fine. Heavily. Only after the company fails to pay do you proceed to stronger deterrents.

By all means follow the other sheep.

towerful ,

business-standard.com/…/explained-why-brazil-s-su…

Additionally, the judge froze the financial assets of Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet company, to cover unpaid fines amounting to 18.5 million reais ($3.28 million) imposed on X for non-compliance.

So, exactly what Brazil has done?

Edit:
Some more detail on the daily fines imposed, and total fines due.
theguardian.com/…/elon-musk-x-could-face-ban-in-b…

Monomate ,

This freeze of Starlink’s financial assets is so absurd, that even Brazilian Speaker of the House (a big son of a bitch himself) criticized it. He made a comparison to another recent national scandal about retailer Americanas defrauding it’s accounting to hide the fact it is in deep debt. Its owner fled to Europe to avoid persecution. Under the same argument, they’d be authorized to freeze Ambev’s (beverage company which is partially owned by Americanas’ owner) assets to cover for Americanas’ debt.

The insane judge that ordered the asset freeze is so blinded by his vendetta against Elon Musk that he does dumb shit like this, which is putting a big stain on Brazil credibility to foreign investors. If a single insane judge can do this on his whim, who would want to invest in Brazil?

towerful ,

Sure, but the fines have gone unpaid.
The private owner of the private company X has enough money to cover the fines.
Brazil is now seizing assets to try and recover the amount due.

X isn’t declaring bankruptcy. X is flaunting legal rulings and dodging fines.
If that scares away “investors” that are going to skirt or flaunt laws, rulings and legality then it seems like a decent result for Brazil.

emax_gomax ,

The key point here was 18.5 million in unpaid fines. If you wanna move the goal posts to liquidating related assets that’s fine, but you said due process has been skipped when very clearly due process was followed, musk ignored it and pretended to be above the law like he normally does, musk got his company banned.

jaggedrobotpubes ,

You’re talking about this like blocking the free flow of ground-up information is the same as blocking cunty authoritarian propaganda.

Ilandar ,

the double-standards are stupid: countries in the Middle East block social media - bad; Brazil blocks X - good.

That sounds like a massive oversimplification. Why are these countries blocking or banning social media platforms? How do their citizens feel about the decisions? Those are the things that should be focused on, not boring American culture war shit.

hanrahan ,
@hanrahan@slrpnk.net avatar

If the Government issues an order to remove a post that says “Don’t Get vaccinated and pray instead” vs “you called our President/King/Autocrat a cnut, so your post should be removed and your ID passed on so you can be prosecuted” are both having the govenrmt intervene, most sane people in democracies would be ok with the former but not the latter.

As an Australian I was NOT ok with the Australian governments esafety commissioner trying their stunt with Twitter. I find it doubly amazing the continued use of the service by any of our politicians , fcuk them. Set up a Mastodon instance and use that ffs.

variety.com/…/australian-court-elon-musk-x-freedo…

geography082 ,

I hope not. Ban = authoritarianism

mosiacmango , (edited )

They were banned for refusing to follow Brazilian laws, specially laws about disinformation. Twitter was banned in Brazil because its actively working as a propaganda outlet.

Propaganda = authoritarianism

vxx ,

I think they were banned because they didn’t have a representative in the country that they could serve those allegations to.

affiliate ,

authoritarianism is when no twitter

DogPeePoo ,

Yes

kokesh ,
@kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, X is a pool of sewage. But banning it? Why? Let them do what they want.

Iceblade02 ,

That’s frankly a terrible idea. Us not doing this is what differentiates the free(er) world from authoritarian regimes like Russia or the PRC.

SaharaMaleikuhm ,

No. The difference is we have democracy instead of despotism so you can vote for someone else if you are unhappy with your government. Also free press. And no, Europe ain’t perfect, but equating it to Russia is laughable.

Monomate ,

Here in Brazil we have a judge that concentrates the powers of: judge, prosecutor, victim, legislator, chief of Federal Police. And he wasn’t elected by the people. Are we still really a democracy? Are we so different from countries like Russia?

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Judge tells the company to take down profiles that have been known to be used solely for spreading political lies. Company complies. Manbaby buys company, pedals back on previous compliance. Judge tells company to comply again. Company ignores it. Judge makes it a legal order. Company removes its legal representative from the country, so the company no longer “answers to the country’s laws”. Company’s IP addresses gets country wide block. That is censorship because…? Freeze peach?

Not that the judge in question, Alexandre de Moraes, is any sort of role model, what with him imposing a R$50,000 fine to anyone using a VPN to bypass the block, which is a clear overstepping of the order and hitting end users because “fuck them”, this is likely to be overruled later today. He also ordered to freeze Starlink’s assets (because they didn’t comply with the order to block xitter).

Monomate , (edited )

The Brazilian Internet Law (Marco Civil da Internet) says that the content to be removed via judicial intervention must be specified. It does not allow the blocking of entire accounts from a social media platform. In fact, Brazilian Constitution forbids this kind of censorship (Censura Prévia). The decision to block X nationwide is based on a series of decisions that blatantly violate Brazilian Law.

By the way, the dictator-judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Starlink’s asset freeze before Starlink wouldn’t comply with X blocking.

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

The part of the law that talks about content removal (Section 3, articles 18 to 21) does not say that only content can be removed nor that accounts can’t be touched. Before Moraes, judges have ordered people to be locked out of certain social media, so there is precedent.

It’s also important to note that freedom of speech ends the moment it becomes a crime. Whether said xitter accounts have been committing crimes, and which crimes, is a different discussion

Alphane_Moon ,
@Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world avatar

I think you need to cancel your citizenship (and your family members’ citizenships) and move to russia or PRC.

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