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Comment by mabbo | 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.

This is kind of insane.

So if I offer a free website- a private company operating as I like- I would be forbidden from removing content from my own website that I don't like because the person who wrote it- again, not a paying customer- wants it to be there. Not only does that person have free speech, but I have to foot the bill for them to promote their free speech.

> does not break Polish law

This is the real key piece. Poland's government can just ban saying anything that goes against their own viewpoints. Now their supporters can't have their comments removed, and their detractors will.

View on HN

Put another way: In the US at least, r/jailbait didn't actually break any laws (well, maybe some individual posts did, but the whole idea of that subreddit was essentially to ogle underage women/children but in a way that was not explicitly illegal). So with something like this law all social media sites would be forced to host the equivalent of r/jailbait.

I don't see that as a good counter example. That sort of content should be illegal anyway.

That's exactly what makes it a great example. If we accept the premise that /r/jailbait was not illegal (but "merely" reprehensible), then under this new law, Reddit would have been breaking the law when they decided to ban the subreddit.

A great example maybe to demonstrate inability of current criminal code and judicial systems,

but not a good example to convince someone that privatized censorship is akchally a good thing.

Its because real life is not black and white. Its shades of gray mostly.

And while its ease to spot and codify extreme cases on both sides, its impossible for a law to clearly codify a clear line where good turns to bad.

The 'original' argument for this type of conversation is: what makes a nude picture an art piece, what makes it porn. If we were given 100 photos we would probably agree in most cases whats art and whats porn, but try to write rules for distinguishing them.

It should, but until legislators act, it's legal. That's the issue will the law.

The Constitution would need to amended.

Clothed pictures of minors should be illegal?

Why should it be illegal?

Actually, r/jailbait was removed as a reaction to the FOSTA laws which explicitly carve out an exception to section 230 for content that could be considered related to sex trafficking, so in this sense it actually did create a new legal risk compared to other non-sex related subs.

Yes, as afuchs said, FOSTA wasn't passed to 2018, and that forced things like craigslist personals to close. r/jailbait was closed many years earlier in response to an onslaught of negative media attention.

I thought that subreddit was banned because of the negative media attention that it received. Wasn't that years before SESTA and FOSTA were passed?

Wikipedia says 2011. So yes.

Yes, the timing matched with the negative media attention, similar to the removals of a few Trump subreddits recently.

This has already been weaponized by subs like /r/AgainstHateSubs and other vigilante-like subs. Their tactics usually involve posting in those subreddits from sockpuppet accounts, using hateful or threatening messages. The few times the targeted subs mods aren't on the ball, they mass report the post for hate speech to try and get the sub banned, or the mods banned then later request the subreddit for themselves, something of a trophy I guess. On rare instances, they reach out to their freelance journalist friends to write a hite piece.

> Their tactics usually involve posting in those subreddits from sockpuppet accounts, using hateful or threatening messages.

Any evidence for this?

Do you need any evidence for this? Shouldn't this be handled in the same way you would patch a security hole even if you had no evidence it was being exploited?

I.e. shouldn't Reddit let a community exist, even if some users post content against the rules, as long as the moderators are putting a reasonable, good faith effort to ban such users?

(I don't know if what notadev said is true, or if Reddit bans communities just because users are posting bad content against the moderators will)

Is this not something that Reddit can show is happening? I guess you could avoid things like browser fingerprinting by using multiple machines as well as a VPN, however, if someone is going to that level of effort -- what's the end game?

If the site admins just want an excuse to get rid of a sub that doesn’t align with their political ideology, it’d be pretty easy to not bother investigating.

Don't those subs tend to produce enough hate on their own without having to have anyone fake it? I have a cousin who is down the QAnon rabbit hole, believes a race war is coming, and will happily make new accounts and post all day long to whatever subs he thinks are on the same page as him. He's been through several facebook accounts in just last year.

I can assure you he isn't an antifa plant.

These subs are one of the main drivers for people like your cousin.

They need each other like a married couple.

> This is kind of insane.

It's especially insane because Polish law is not a superset of every other country's law. If a web site is forced to remove content because it violates a law specific to the country the site is based in -- boom, now they've broken the law in Poland.

Nitpicking: you would want it to be a subset of the laws of all other countries‘ for that as it needs to be the intersection of all to be compatible with all of them at once.

Social media is heavily balkanized along language borders.

You're right, there's no way this could reasonably enforced.

Enforced it could be. No way to reasonably comply, though.

We can extend your point. A website used by kids may not want swear words, a website may not want sexists, racists, and another hate speech. In certain situations, disallowing content is the site owner's way of expressing their point of the view. This law bans this site owner from doing so. It limits site owner's ability to express their views on what their own property should be. By the way, we should also keep in mind that a site is the private property of an entity, just like an object or a piece of land. If this law is enacted, when a site owner sees speech on their own site that goes against their values, they can only condemn them with words, but the actual act will still happen on their property.

Yup, under this law a post mentioning true facts about nazi collaboration in poland during ww2 would be illegal.

Aren't facts true per definition?

Plenty of countries pass laws stating the the truth is propaganda - the US equivalent would be calling it Fake News, only they'd actually legally prohibit anything the gov says is fake news.

Out of curiosity, which facts do you mean?

The law is stupid of course and an attempt to fight for their point of view(that is: xenophobic, racist and intolerant), but history is a subject rather widely discussed in Poland with all the sides being represented in media.

There are some who like to call Nazi death camps 'Polish death camps' because they were located in Nazi occupied Poland. This, of course, is frowned on by Poland. It is seen as a way of blaming Poland for Germany's crimes, while the people who do it play innocent and claim they are merely stating 'true facts' about the locations of the camps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/"Polish_death_camp"_controvers...

Note the last part of that article, though[1]:

You're also not allowed to refer to camps like Zgoda or Jaworzno - which were labour camps operated by poles on behalf of the communist regime - as 'Polish concentration camps'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_contro...

It's a bit of a mess. If you're given a task of running a camp from occupying forces, I can't imagine you have much real choice (or you end up in one yourself). Then again, "just following orders" is not a great defence either. I wish people didn't try to make that black&while.

Or to add a different story, a family member sent to a Soviet camp told everyone not to retaliate against neighbours who testified against him - because they were likely forced to do so.

Or think of Nazi-run weapon factories in occupied countries where locals were forced to work. (And sometimes managed to sabotage production quality)

I'll tell you a secret. Poles are exceptionally adept at duplicity and censoring their history. Chopin, Konopnicka were likely gay? LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! Józef Bem converted to Islam and still acted like a Polish patriot? Let's talk about something else. Such and such poets or composers etc were jewish? You're either a Jew or a Polish Catholic, obviously. Poland never attacked any countries. Poland didn't initially try an alliance with Hitler and annex a part of Czechoslovakia. The word "pogrom" doesn't come from Polish, no no. And before "pogrom", "tumult" wasn't used as an euphemism. Aggression towards immigrants doesn't contradict Christianity. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was perfect and it collapsed only because it was attacked by neighbors. All countries bordering with Poland love Poland. Poland is the fountain of innovation, it's only a coincidence the most famous Polish people lived outside Poland.

There's literally a common phrase "Poland is the Christ of nations." - Mickiewicz, the chief poet. You can only be the Christ if you're without fault.

edit: this post is getting downvoted :D. I was never good at Polish doublethink, cared too much about facts.

it's getting downvoted because you said this in the most racist sounding way possible.

"Various polish governments have done XYZ" vs. "polish people lie". It's similar to "Israel does XYZ to Palestinians" vs "Jews want XYZ to happen to Palestinians" (to use a common antisemitic trope trying to justify antisemitism)

Incidentally, Poles are one of the purest or most inbred nations in Europe, and you have no one else but Adolf Hitler to thank for it. You see echoes of that in Witcher 3, I know it caused some controversy overseas because of how uniformly white everyone is. No malicious intent there, just modern Poles projecting their world back in time. Between WW1 and WW2, percentage of people identifying as Poles was less than 70%. Today it's 97%.

There's a point after which you can say there's a pattern and not just a bunch of samples. When we're talking about populations we're talking in terms of averages and distributions, and the average in Poland is much like I described. In my opinion history of Poland is the second state religion, after catholicism, 91% as of 2018. And if you say many young people don't actually go to church, you're making my point (duplicity and appeasing peer pressure).

97% and 91%. Maybe it's you who don't know what you're talking about?

I only found out recently that you need to go through a lengthy process back in the church where you were baptised in order to renounce yourself from the Catholic church here in Poland. Just being an atheist, not attending church, not believing, not supporting the organisation is enough. You need to go to your place of baptism, have multiple talks with the priest there, then fill out some forms, wait some time, etc.

I wonder if people actually know this, and how many actually go through the pain of "de-registering" themselves from this organisation.

I also wonder how this affects things like "official statistics" of Catholics in the country.

Regarding Witcher 3 there is a very simple reason for nearly all the people being white. It's because the region is in turmoil and there's a war going on. So all the people (of different skin colour, different race) that can leave have already done so.

The process is why I don't bother. I was baptized when I was little and I don't consider that a proper contract. If they want to use bad input data, I'll let them deceive themselves. Going to the church and pleading is not only somewhat humiliating, it validates the contract between a little child and a very large organization.

"Colorful" people leaving because of a war implies a racist society where unusual people are merely tolerated at best of times. History is more complex than that. Duke Mieszko I, the first recorded ruler of Poland, gifted a camel (according to Thietmar) to Otto III, future emperor. That was in A.D. 986.

Not necessarily that colourful people leave, but that outsiders leave. For one because they can and have somewhere else to go to, but the other because if they stay they will be viewed with suspicion and bad things might happen to them.

The Witcher series has been full of fearful populaces wary and hostile to outsiders/other races (Dwarves and Elves in this case).

You posts remind me of how Goebbels propaganda machine described the jew: crooked nose, small eyes, greedy,...

Fine.

These laws are in response to people, some of them misguided but many of them doubtlessly neo-nazis, calling Auschwitz a 'polish camp'. The law has unfortunate edge cases but I think it was well motivated. If you tally up all the Poles who knowingly and willingly collaborated with Nazis and compare that with the number of Poles murdered by the Nazis, I think it's clear that calling Auschwitz a 'polish camp' is monstrous. And while the matter of Zgoda should be taken seriously, it should also be kept in context. Less than two thousand people died at Zgoda, which is certainly a horrible crime. But that number represents what, a few hours at Auschwitz? It was more at Jaworzno, but still less than a single day at Auschwitz. It is any wonder the matter of these camps was overlooked in the formulation of a law targetting neo-nazis who want to disassociate Germany from Auschwitz?

It's not what I'd call a great law. But I think it's a law with a wholly reasonable motivation.

I have never seen people seriously claiming that the Poles ran the concentration camps.

That's different from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupi... which may be a controversial topic but one based on real history

Misspeaking and labeling the camps Polish due to geographical location is almost certainly an innocent mistake.

https://time.com/5128341/poland-holocaust-law/

> The bill was proposed by the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and calls for up to three years in prison or a fine for accusing the Polish state or people of involvement or responsibility for the Nazi occupation during World War II

The law has since passed, tho it was later amended to remove the prison time portion.

Now I am not a lawyer, nor am I polish, so I don't know what the situation is on the ground - but I believe the law makes repeating much of the contents of this wikipedia page illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupi...

No one sensible is accusing "the Polish state" or "the Polish people" of being involved with the Holocaust, and the Wikipedia page itself doesn't state anything like that. The law is aimed at hateful idiocy like talking about the supposed "Polish death camps", as opposed to the tragically real Nazi death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The wikipedia page I linked to clearly points out that polish people WERE involved in the holocaust. Not all, in fact I believe the vast majority of poles were not collaborators... but that doesn't mean this law doesn't make it legally sketchy to talk about the poles who were collaborators

Polish people were exterminated on a daily basis by German nazis. Over 5 million Poles were brutally killed. It is hard to miss German attack and occupation of Poland aim was also to depopulate it from polish people.

Collaborators were punished because they were traitors and everyone seen and sees them like such.

Below is a link to a Wikipedia where you can learn more:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_(1939%E2%8...

I hope you will understand how offensive and false your comment is.

Just one example from your link:

> Especially in the early weeks of the German offensive, many thousands of Jews were murdered by members of local communities in the western parts of the previously Soviet zone, such as the Baltic countries, eastern Poland, and western Ukraine.

I am absolutely not trying to paint a complex situation in black and white. The article you linked to also points out how many non-jewish poles were killed, how many non-jewish poles helped jewish poles at great risk to themselves, etc. but the idea that you can “other” collaborator poles out of being poles is denying the reality.

Polish people were also murdered in huge numbers by the Russians, but people often forget that.

I visited a Nazi extermination camp in Poland where you could literally see the adjacent town from inside the camp fences. It's absolute lunacy to pretend there weren't Polish collaborators.

It's an absolute lunacy to think that because a group of people lives nearby a place where something bad is going on, it is certain that among them are people helping with it.

Mentioning true facts (mostly falsehoods, but also some true facts) about WW2 is already illegal in Germany.

Like what? Please don’t let it be Holocaust denial...

Spoiler alert: it's Holocaust denial.

Of course that is illegal in Germany, but it's also illegal to make certain true claims that are contrary to the official narrative imposed on Germany after their defeat.

Now you have me interested, which fact would that be?

This is the true point of it. Anything they don't like is banned, anything they like is compelled.

This would be a nightmare for anyone trying to host a family-friendly forum.

“Hey, no pornography!” “What are you gonna do about it?”

Completely reactionary and fails to consider practicality.

Don't put it past Polish law and order to rule pornography illegal soon. (And contraception probably sooner) I wouldn't be surprised at attempts - they're quite conservative.

You already need to go see a doctor and get a prescription for anything contraception related, and they can decide not to give it to you. This includes "the pill" as well as "the morning after pill".

Also the recent rulings on Abortion almost caused a revolution. So they might be more careful in the coming months.

I'm not a lawyer, and at the risk of sounding ignorant, but I don't understand how a Polish law can be enforced on a company/service/piece of hardware under US (presumably, but could be any other) jurisdiction.

At the end of the day, the data is sitting on a piece of hardware somewhere, isn't the "owning" place the one that dictates what laws can be enforced on it?

It can be enforced in a lot of ways, including fines on the company's operations in the country, charges against local employees and banning the site from the country's ISPs.

If you want to do business in a country, then you have to follow the laws of that country. Polish courts would enter judgment against the company for violating Polish law, premising their jurisdiction on the activities of that company within their borders (e.g. accepting payment in polish currency, selling ads to polish businesses, charging for polish views/clicks). They can then seize the company's property in Poland to enforce that judgment. They can also introduce that judgment in foreign courts to do enforcement actions there. Those foreign courts would examine the validity of the Polish judgment (e.g. by reexamining jurisdiction) before issuing orders to enforce it.

There's nothing novel about this. This is how civil judgments are enforced across borders every day.

Makes sense, thanks.

Presumably social media companies want to sell ads there and then it's rather easy to pressure them to cooperate or fine them.

IANAL but as I understand it, most governments will consider something to be in their jurisdiction if the user is within their jurisdiction, even if the server is not. See GDPR, which applies to all EU citizens globally- even one residing in the United States using US web services.

GDPR outside the European Union only applies to European Union based companies (headquartered in the EU).

Otherwise, it is limited to internet traffic from people within the European Union.

This rule was unclear in the beginning of the law implement, but there have been high court rulings clearing up the confusion.

See this, for example “Google wins landmark right to be forgotten case”: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49808208

It is a bit more complicated: the EU considers the protection of personal data a basic human right (charta of fundamental rights article 8). As such there are cases where the EU considers itself to be the responsible authority, even if the company is not within the EU, as long as the data subject is.

There are limits to that due to contract law, but there are also limits how many rights one can sign away, especially when dealing with predatory corporations.

To give a less digital analogue: if you are robbed, your local police is the authority you talk to. They are not going to tell you that you need to find out who robbed you and talk to the police in their home town.

That’s a great point. Sorry I was not as inclusive as I should have been in my explanation.

I am a dual US|EU citizen, but I am culturally American. I was trying to explain it from the perspective of Americans.

Thank you again for the clarification.

Have the EU been able to impose GDPR penalties on an org with no staff or assets and no representation in the EU?

Who mentioned the US?

No one.

> (presumably, but could be any other)

This status quo is US companies gets to decide wait is fair speech. Obviously this is untenable for all other nations as it should be in the US as well.

>So if I offer a free website- a private company operating as I like- I would be forbidden from removing content from my own website that I don't like

You will have to put more limits up front to control what content gets uploaded.

The second part is reminiscent of how “net neutrality” is pitched in the United States. I’ve never felt that definition was true net neutrality due to the reason you outlined.

I don't think all legal nuances are visible in one sentence resume probably hastily translated from Polish, but in any case there's nothing unusual about it. Many countries already have anti-discrimination laws which can seriously limit what you can do with your private property when it's open for public interaction. I'm sure they will use it as a blueprint.

It is equally insane to say forbid hate speech as is can be interpreted as anything. Likewise, I assume they want to keep social media from deleting anything not aligned to the current zeitgeist.

The real problem are still people that want content removed that mostly doesn't even concern them in the first place.

But you are correct, a literal usage of this law is insane.

Like they sing in Poland, Jebać PiS.

Note that PiS is actually pronounced piss, which must be some kind of divine providence.

> PiS is actually pronounced piss

no it isn't. It's pronounced peace

Hahaha, a lot of people who are Slavs or of Slavic descent know exactly what you mean, universally. The first word is known well across Slavic languages, the second is an acronym for Poland’s far right ruling party.

Actual protest from the end of 2020 when PIS decided to just break established multi party agreements and outlaw abortions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ericprydz/comments/jkzj5a/antigover...

how it happened https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygAMU7HOM7I

But to determine if something is legal or illegal sometimes takes years, doesn't it?

facebook can simply pull out of the nation

Oh, but Zbigniew Ziobro (the minister) IS kinda insane in other aspects. He's a hardcore conservative.

His childhood/teenage hero was Janosik, a highlander bandit along the lines of Robin Hood. Being a fan of vigilante justice is not a good sign if you're a minister of justice.

He's bothered by independent courts and independent prosecutors. He puts pressure on judges ruling not along his will, he harasses them, stripped one of immunity for investigating a break of parliamentary statute. If you do something he doesn't like, he might relocate or harass you under a pretext. Make an example out of you. His actions are clearly aimed to produce a chilling effect. But priests accused of pedophilia get silent protection, including getting a peek into court documents. He also likes to micromanage court cases, especially in flashy cases where it's easy to get an emotional reaction from people, such as accusions of rape, pedophilia (except by priests), murder.

He gets in bed with Ordo Iuris, a para-legal branch of the Brazilian catholic sect TFP, condemned by bishops in Brazil in the 80's. They are absolutely against abortion and openly seek goals like forbidding divorce.

He's a mediocre lawyer.

He objects to the idea that European Union cares about law-abidingness and asked the consitutional court to check if the idea is compatible with constitution. Political goals and "good of the nation" are more important to him.

He's a paranoid, petty and vindictive person. Also, very power hungry.

> does not break Polish law

The ruling party intentionally creates ambiguous law that can be applied in an arbitrary manner. Be on the party's good side.

Current Polish government is a lite version of authoritarianism, and getting more so over time. It doesn't control all aspects of life like a totalitarian party would, yet. But it's trying, for example religion, against sexuality(including basic sexual education), edits history textbooks, paints new people as heroes and erases old ones. Doctors and experts don't have much to say in matters of the pandemic. One party official openly stated they have no use for experts because they refuse to implement the party policy.

Don't miss the fact no ruling party member congratulated Joe Bidden on winning the election. The closest they got was congratulating him on a "good campaign", echoing the statements of those like Vladimir Putin. They are very much fans of Donald Trump. NATO's new focus on "defense of democracy", EU's attention to law-abidingneness, Biden's ostensible emphasis on values and democracy are all dark clouds for the Polish ruling party.

The bottom line: for the pro-West, pro-EU Poles, Ziobro is an awful person.

This government is reminding me of a Communist state more and more each day.

Norman Davies, the British-Polish historian specializing in East Europe and fascinated by Poland in particular, agrees.

https://www.msn.com/pl-pl/wiadomosci/polska/norman-davies-%E...

He also said Polish priests hoped for theocracy in reward for their support against the communist state as it was falling apart.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Polska/comments/7c30dz/polski_probo...

He is overall very sympathetic towards Poland, speaks the language quite well, and thinks people should learn more about it. Timothy Snyder is another one. I like non-Polish historians because they have a different view.

There is a distinction between website and the quoted "social media services".

Really? Define it then.

Facebook is a website by all technical terms.

Where is the hard defined line between social media services and a website?

What is a website that hosts a forum?

What is Discord?

What if I run a WordPress website with the BuddyPress plugin?

What about comments on my blog articles?

You could discriminate by just listing names of the platforms that this law is intended for or go by number of (polish?) users.

A while ago, I got a lot of flack here for suggesting that github wasn’t a social media website.

Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, had an interesting way of talking about Facebook that might help with a future definition of "social media services."

He (and podcast co-host John Gruber[0]) talked about the idea that Facebook isn't the same site for any two people. Due to the algo, everyone has their own personal version of the site. Therefore, there's no individual snapshot of Facebook at any given time.

I found this an interesting concept to point out. If one needed to distinguish between a website and "social media services," perhaps a law could be drafted such that such a condition was true.

HN, for example, would be a website because commenting and voting is user-based. I suppose that might mean Spotify and Netflix would be swallowed by the definition. The definition would then need additional language about user-submitted content.

[0]: https://dithering.fm

Amazon.com isn't the same site for any two people. It shows you different product suggestions based on what you purchased or looked at before.

Websites that host user generated content are social media.

HN is a social media, your basement server isn’t, hosted content on AWS probably needs some definition workarounds but instinctively shouldn’t be.

What about my PeerTube instance hosted on a NUC in my kitchen? It hosts copies of videos and comments from other instances.

Boom you're a social media company. And you'll be naturally liable for hosting contents. Isn't that how Winny worked?

Technically Facebook/Twitter are not websites, but "social" applications (web/native). You need to have a user account to see (FB) or post (FB/Twitter) anything.

I need a user account to watch Netflix. Same for banking.

A user account is not the primary criteria of being a "social" application.

Where is the distinction between a company town and my living room? Define it.

Is HN a social media service?

There is not even a draft of this law available, so you can't be sure.

Really?

What if I have a blog with comments? That is a website that involves social interaction. If I remove a comment on there, that is “removing content”.

Well all this wouldn't have been possible if not for the precedent Big Tech set in handling opposing ideologies. Now why cry over balkanization of the internet when that is what was pushed for by the leftists in these Big Tech companies? What do you think would happen if Big Tech kept censoring something it did not like? You would obviously have a reaction to it. I view the Polish laws as a reaction to the ridiculous ideological censorship stance taken by the Big Tech. First polarize the population, then cry why opposing laws are being framed that shatters your idea of what internet should be. I won't be surprised if many other countries follow the same path. Those who experienced censorship know it first hand what it's like. Looking at you being shocked at this legislation just shows how wide the split is. That one bubble is completely oblivious to what the other bubble is experiencing.

Ah, Poland. The next 1930s Germany.

I say this to reinforce what OP points out. If the government disagrees with something, they can now simply rewrite a law to enable their censorship. That is scary, given they don't have a definitive law protecting people from government censorship.

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