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Comment by nippples | Hacker News Reader

As much as I hate Facebook and I think it's one of the main vectors of all the social unrest cancer we see metastasizing everywhere in western society nowadays, this decision is stupid and does only yet more harm to free speech than actually address any real problem, but serves only to sweep it under the rug until it explodes in our face.

Of course, most politicians involved in making this happen won't ever have to deal with one iota of the inconvenience they bestow over their general population.

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I'm with you. This is the first time in a very long time that I had to defend Facebook.

What does "obviously illegal" even mean? And is it like "obvious porn"? Because politicians themselves seem to be doing a terrible job at recognizing that, too:

> During the various internet censorship cases the ACLU brought, we asked the government to identify speech in each category, and they were largely unable to do so. For example, they said that an online photo on Playboy’s website of a topless woman was not harmful to minors, but a virtually identical photo on Penthouse’s website was.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170626/16543937676/how-a...

Social media are arguably amplifying those "real problems" and regulating them is therefore a very reasonable thing to do, as it is reasonable to do something about mosquitoes that are spreading deadly diseases [0] (using this example because you mentioned vectors as an analogy). I don't think that the law they passed implies that nothing else will be done to address the underlying causes of these issues. Suggesting it does is disingenuous.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_control

> I don't think that the law they passed implies that nothing else will be done to address the underlying causes of these issues. Suggesting it does is disingenuous.

Many politicians, especially in the mainstream, operate on a 'lowest possible effort' basis to pretend they're giving a damn about their electorate, which is why so many completely awful laws and trade deals get passed just by giving it a friendly-sounding name, all while pocketing a hefty 'extra payment' for their collaboration.

I'll be more surprised to find out that something concrete was done about the cause of extremism in Europe than to find out that there was a ridiculously large network of bribed politicians involved in passing this law.

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