Be careful what you wish for… #foodforthought #censorship

https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/10/21/2128248/fcc-defends-helping-trump-claims-authority-over-social-media-law

This is the result of not only originally from a) copyright maximalism extremists lobby but also, more recently, from b) pressure by people who can’t handle offence from the right with all the “cancel culture” calls.

The problem is… you have just opened the door for people who can’t handle offence from the left, get it?

You can’t ask for censorship of things you don’t like without giving the legal tools for censorship of the things you do like from a guy you don’t like. Like Trump.

I’ve been saying for years that places like the closed garden social networks provide a space to speak your mind, but they *do* have the right to restrict your speech in their own walled garden.

However… the moment they started editorializing (and they not only can do it, they actively do it when they manipulate our feeds, insert ads, etc…) they opened themselves up to existing regulation.

Regulation that is now being abused by the Trump administration.

Congratulations, lobbyists and snowflakes, you got what you asked for.

Can we now work to fix this?

Is it even fixable without exiting the huge social networks, making people loose all the network effects from vast networks?

I’m not sure it is, but it certainly is awake up call.

There are other options like the Fediverse, where you can build your own social network that integrates with others, but Facebook and Twitter will never allow federation, nor any other successful (by numbers or regulation like in China) social network.

That god-awful upcoming european copyright directive revision…

So the European Comission and Parliament wants to give more power to the copyright maximalism extremists, sorry… to revise the european copyright directive…

Among other issues they want to:

  • tax links to news sources (article 11)
  • censor before pubication anything citizens want to publish online under the excuse of “protecting” against copyright infringement (article 13)

Article 11

The first one is moronic, andI will do all my best to lead to the death of the publishers of news sources who support this.

No more sharing of article, no more links.

I may personally not be liable BUT any social network I participate in is, and if they deem my website as commercial in any way or form even I may be liable because of what users publish as comments.

This is absurd, links drive potential customers to you, guys. Wanting to cash-in because a link and a short excerpt points to your page is a very misguided idea driven by avarice.

This is what you deserve: a very slow death by nobody using your services because nobody knows of links to you.

I will do my best with this regard. If you can die slowly and painfully (as a business, not as persons), I will watch with a smile on my face.

Ear to ear grin, guys. Not a slight Amazon-like smirk. Ear to ear…

Article 13

Guys… this is censorship at the full extent of the meaning of the word. Government mandated rules that prevent publishing for some specific reason.

If you believe that software can properly detect copyright infringement, then I have a good piece of land on  the moon to sell you really cheap. I promise to provide a good deed of proof of ownership! Really!

And if you needed any proof, then here it goes… a most recent and obnoxious case where Sony claims copyright of Bachs works on Facebook. Seriously?

Do not even dream for a second that is will get refined and work in the future.

It won’t. Artifical Intelligence will sooner take over our society and replace it with repetitive robotic work than do this properly.

And this leeds to a slippery slope of censorship where other rules will be added to the censorship machines…  and in fact… really… they’re already doing it… now they’re adding the “rules against terrorism”, I wonder how many steps until you can’t say something against the european authority…