The EU is setting up another cash grab | THE COLLINE GATE

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

The EU is setting up another cash grab Sept 28, 2017 8:06:15 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Sept 28, 2017 8:06:15 GMT -5

money.cnn.com/2017/09/28/technology/hate-speech-facebook-twitter-europe/index.html

Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies have been given an ultimatum by the European Union: rid your platforms of hate speech or face legal consequences...

But the European Commission, EU's top regulator, said Thursday they are still failing to act fast enough. It said it would pass laws allowing the EU to impose punishments on companies that fail to act.

"The situation is not sustainable: in more than 28% of cases, it takes more than one week for online platforms to take down illegal content," said Mariya Gabriel, the EU's top official in charge of the digital economy and society.

The Commission said it will consider implementing new laws to tackle the problem if the online platforms fail to "take swift action over the coming months."

Here is the general framework for hate-type speech that requires member nations to pass laws in this regard, which of course doesn't mandate consistency in this regard for all member nations. Yet social media companies are being told that they have to comply with these nebulous standards, or else. Riiiiiight...

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maxinquaye
Savant

Posts: 264

The EU is setting up another cash grab Sept 29, 2017 9:54:24 GMT -5

Post by maxinquaye on Sept 29, 2017 9:54:24 GMT -5

"We innovated this incredibly lucrative way of simplifying the screwing of consumers and citizens in our California offices, and now you are incredibly unfair to us when you don't let us break your laws in the same way. It's just a cash grab!"

That is the essence of the yank complaints against the European Commission lately it seems. They think that their first amendment apply here, and that it would be welcome here. Also, they think that it's completely unscientific that we require people prove that products or service does no harm before they're allowed to deploy them. Also, their tax shenanigans is completely a-ok even though it distorts competition so that a company like Amazon pays less tax on ALL its sales in the UK than one bookstore on one street does.

Just this week the Swedish truck manufacturer Scania (owned by Volkswagen) was fined $1 billion. Proportionally, that's far far worse than the ruling against Apple because truck manufacturing has thin margins and a constricted market. There's only so many trucks you can sell, and those you can sell don't make that much profit. You don't hear about that, of course, because it's not a "cash grab" against another yank firm.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-27/vw-s-scania-unit-fined-1-03-billion-by-eu-for-price-fixing

The reason Scania was fined was because they colluded with other truck manufacturers on price, to keep the margins artificially higher and limit competition. And they got burned, badly, just like the yank companies that ride in and expect things to work here like the do in California.

There's a simple way for these companies to avoid these things. Don't do business in Europe. Abandon the largest market on the planet. Don't take our ad money and don't take our shopping cash. Either that, or obey the laws.

By the way, wasn't it you who went on about obeying laws when it came to punching nazis? Why doesn't that apply here?

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robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

The EU is setting up another cash grab Sept 29, 2017 11:32:50 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Sept 29, 2017 11:32:50 GMT -5

If EU nations don't like these services, they are free to pass laws that criminalize the use of these services by their own citizens, or otherwise limit the use of these services in their own specific countries (i.e. EU members can act like China in this regard).

It's you, Max, you and the other citizens of Europe who want these things, who want twitter, Facebook, and and other platforms. Don't like the service? Stop fucking using it. And if someone breaks a specific law in a post on Facebook or the like, report their ass and your government can try to find them and arrest them.

You're right, though: the First Amendment rights of US citizens don't apply to US citizens when they are in the EU, nor do those rights apply to citizens of the EU. But I don't think it's up to companies providing this kind of service (a social media platform) to police everything written on a timetable set by the EU with regard to a less-than universal standard.

And no, it wasn't me who went on about obeying laws.

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