Hacker News Reader

Comment by hellodang | Hacker News Reader

> Under its provisions, social media services will not be allowed to remove content or block accounts if the content on them does not break Polish law.

> If a special court rules in favour of the plaintiff and the internet service does not obey the ruling it can subject to a fine of up to PLN 8 million (EUR 1.8 million) imposed by the Office of Electronic Communications.

This is an incredibly progressive move by Poland! Such simple, but powerful, legislation. The United States currently has FOSINO (freedom of speech in name only), but a law like this would actually make freedom of speech meaningful, in a land where online censorship is rampant.

View on HN

This legislation is the opposite of freedom of speech and is actually a perfect example of FOSIMO. It is shifting the control of speech from the public sphere into governmental control. Now they will have a court of law and legislative bodies deciding what is acceptable speech for social media.

All speech should be acceptable, according to the Polish government. It’s not right for a private entity to regulate speech. This law puts the locus of control back in the hands of government, but nowhere does it imply that the government will censor the citizens of Poland. It promises the opposite: that their voices will be heard instead of stamped out by the big tech companies.

That's not freedom of speech. That's authoritarian control - governments have no business in regulating the speech of private entities. By giving government power to "prevent censorship" you also give them power to create and enforce censorship. That's how powers work. If you have the power to tell private companies they can't remove content they pay for, then you also have the power to tell them to remove content. Don't advocate for authoritarian governments.

Private entities are horrible at self-regulating. They are equally horrible at creating their own laws to selectively apply to users of their platform, in addition to laws of the location of the user.

This law effectively diminishes the ability of those private entities to enforce their own laws and terms of use. That sounds like a win for regular folks like me and you.

I don't expect my life will be improved by a brave new world of misinformation- if hacker news was unmoderated for example, there would be nothing on this site than a bunch of nazis high fiving each other all day, it would be worthless to normal people engaged in normal conversations and tech people wouldn't find it worth visiting.

Private entities don't have their own laws. They can't summon police to take you away or hand out fines you didn't contract to. Governments can.

If a government has the power to make private entities host user content they don't want then they have overall regulatory power and can go in the opposite direction as well. That's why government has no business regulating private entities for "freedom of speech". Unless you want the government to be your speech.

To prevent censorship doesn't make it more likely that a future government will enforce censorship, any more then to prevent racial discrimination makes it more likely that a future government will enforce racial discrimination.

This isn’t authoritarian in the slightest. If you think having your voice heard instead of silenced is an example of authoritarianism, I’m afraid trying to explain anything would be a lost cause.

"I’m afraid trying to explain anything would be a lost cause" that's intellectually dishonest. Don't participate if you wont explain your position and won't address arguments.

As I said and you didn't address - this is a powers issue. Governments don't just get granted one singular law and nothing else. That kind of law gives them overall power to regulate. If a government can tell a private entity that they have to host user content they don't want - then they can do the opposite as well.

If your not familiar with powers issues then you have a lot of education infront of you.

For all the flaws that the US has, my understanding is that it does have comparatively strong free speech protection compared to moat of the world. Would you mind sharing why you feel that that isn't the case?

Freedom of speech in the US is strong, but its failure to carry over into private contexts makes it largely symbolic in the 21st century. The fact that you cannot make a YouTube video expressing concerns about COVID-19 or election fraud, since it will be censored, is a shining example of the failure of freedom of speech.

Many people think that censorship is something that only a government is capable of doing, and that it doesn’t apply to corporations. But when multinational corporations like Google have more power, and more wealth than the GDPs of half the world’s countries, that thinking falls flat on its face.

This proposed Polish law is the strongest form of anti-censorship that I’ve ever seen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com