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Comment by isodev | Hacker News Reader

It failed. The outcome was europeans see “yet another nonsense” coming from the US. Also, it barely made the news because of other nonsense coming from the US and generally that’s limited to “international news”.

Also, we don’t actually have censorship in Europe, not in the way the US is trying to suggest.

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Yet, your ISPs don't give you access to the full Internet. First it's porn (age verification), then it's soccer, then it's social media (ID verification), then it's libraries. Soon, you even stuff that you take for granted, such as playing an online game, may require age/ID verification. At this rate, all you will be able to access soon will be center-left Euro propaganda.

The ISPs do what our elected governments direct them to do. It’s how democracy works. If you don’t like what people are voting for, get into politics and talk to your community. Or at least email your MEP. There is no conspiracy here.

Cute that you think that's how it works. I guess you're also thinking everyone that voted for the current administration agrees with them on everything they do and voted them in exactly for that. I am at least glad you didn't say if you don't like how it works, move elsewhere.

I know that’s how it works and I also know it’s not a zero sum game. That’s why every law or policy gets time for comments and debate and sometimes policy gets revised. It’s how governance works.

But if you feel you have the perfect solutions, then by all means get yourself on the ballot so we can finally see the light.

Sorry you have to deal with our culture warriors, cheers. It's funny to watch someone get a 1st grade instruction in civics while raving.

What websites a person is allowed to access should not be a matter of debate, it is for the individual to decide. Other people's opinions are not relevant. Even if 99% of people think a person should not be able to access a website, it is still their right to do so and they have no need to justify it.

Democracy is for deciding what to do with taxpayer money. It shouldn't be a mechanism by which people can vote to take away other people's freedoms.

Does that apply to websites full of CSAM, or that sell for-hire animal torture real-time streaming services, or that provide hitman hiring services, or...

I think your view on how government and the internet works is somewhat outdated. Social media is not just "what websites a person is allowed access to" and government is so much more than what we do with taxpayer money.

The US is evidently a poor example of what a fully formed government is so I wouldn't use that as a basis for one's world view.

> Democracy is for deciding what to do with taxpayer money. It shouldn't be a mechanism by which people can vote to take away other people's freedoms.

This is a child-like argument. Pretty much every law such as requiring you to wear a seatbelt takes away your freedoms.

Are you forgetting how the Americans blocked Stormfront and Silk Road? They don't have full access to the Internet either, they're just not so obviously totalitarian about it as the Europeans.

Stormfront was deplatformed, not blocked by ISPs. Silk Road wasn't deplatformed or blocked, the owner got his ass arrested and thrown in prison.

Many parts of the US require age verification for porn as well.

It's only UK that does that, and they're not in the EU. Many us states do the same, and the administration wants to ban porn completely and jail those who make it.

You talking about Texas right? Half the states in the us block and age gate those sites.

"The situation for free speech in Europe is even worse than I thought"

https://eternallyradicalidea.com/p/the-situation-for-free-sp...

I read through this drivel and it's nothing more than conjecture and anecdotes from someone who seems never to have been to Europe. Nearly every example of his critique is of the UK, not Europe as a whole, and each of them has plenty of counterexamples of the same thing happening in the US.

In short: nonsense. Completely made up narrative filled with quotes from same-belief people, claiming moral outrage about issues they either don't understand or wilfully misrepresent.

I'm pretty sure the President and CEO of the leading free expression organization today understands what he's talking about and is fully aware that there are bad things happening in this vein in the US.

The guy who literally actively helped to create the current USA situation? Yeah. All the while he pointificated about free speech, he had clear favorites whose speech mattered and who should shut up.

When the left is censoring more (as was true in the run-up to Trump's election), of course a free speech organization will be opposing left-wing censorship more frequently.

Censorship doesn't help your team, just the opposite. https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/wo...

Trump's election was a reaction to left-wing cancel culture. If people had listened to FIRE, and refuted bad ideas instead of censoring them, maybe Trump wouldn't have been elected: https://qr.ae/pYCVXO

Do you have any specific disagreements you can share with the criticism of the actual content that the parent comment gave, or do you think that the author's job title is more important than whether what they said is actually correct?

The parent comment in question has essentially zero in the way of supporting evidence. The author's first claim happened to be verifiable. I attempted to verify it, and it was pretty clearly false.

What's asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I guess I might not have been clear. I'm specifically wondering about this part, which is what I was referring to about the critique they gave of the actual content:

> Nearly every example of his critique is of the UK, not Europe as a whole, and each of them has plenty of counterexamples of the same thing happening in the US.

Separated from the ad hominems on both sides, it seems like a pretty reasonable criticism to me. It doesn't seem obvious to me that it should be dismissed as irrelevant.

Well, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that when someone claims that the author is "claiming moral outrage about issues they either don't understand or wilfully misrepresent" then what he does for a living matters.

Sure, but if I'm trying to verify the accuracy of their claims, their job both giving them potential subject expertise but also potential bias towards making the exact claims that are being criticized, it doesn't really clear anything up, so I'm back to trying to understand if there's any counterargument to the criticism other than their pedigree.

>Nearly every example of his critique is of the UK

I just used a word count tool to sanity-check this claim. It said there are 1061 words about the UK and 1684 words about non-UK countries.

You appear to be fibbing about easy-to-check facts. Anyone who trusts you on your harder-to-verify claims is a fool.

There seems to be a bit of a pattern I've noticed with Europeans on HN. They criticize the US constantly, yet flip out instantly when their countries are criticized, to the point of reflexively lying about stuff which is easily checkable.

I can sorta understand lying about claims which are hard to verify. It's distasteful, but I can understand why a certain type of person would do it. But, why lie about stuff which takes under 60 seconds to check? What are you trying to accomplish?

BTW, I hope you aren't in Germany. It's a crime to insult someone or spread malicious gossip online in Germany. Your usage of "drivel" might be considered an insult which could get your phone confiscated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc#t=3m

> Also, we don’t actually have censorship in Europe

Of course you do. If you think it does not exist the brainwashing has worked on you.

There was a comma, after which it said "not in the way the US is trying to suggest." You evidently missed that part, or are you saying that it is in exactly the way the US is trying to suggest?

Do Europeans see "yet another nonsense" coming from the US or coming from the EU?

The US.

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