Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law, top official says

Re:Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law... by perihelions on Friday July 14, 2023 @02:48AM (#36720293)

- "Some critics likened this to measures seen in authoritarian states like China and Iran."

To distinguish the actions you would need a magnifying glass and a thesaurus.

(Which any number of pundits are about to dust off from their bookshelves. Because: moral valence flows from the actor to the action. Obviously the authoritarian regimes oppress their people; obviously the free democracies protect their peoples' freedom and security. It takes conscious effort to reverse the causal order—to judge the actor by their actions, not re-interpret the actions on the fly to the fit the actor).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law... by cuuupid on Friday July 14, 2023 @02:58AM (#36720365)

Equating everything to China or middle eastern countries is the 2023 equivalent of equating everything to Hitler.

This is bad but not yet _that_ bad. I have to say though, EU legislature in recent years is on a very slippery slope.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law... by akira2501 on Friday July 14, 2023 @03:01AM (#36720395)

I don't think viewing the nation with the "Great Firewall" as a polemic in this debate is anywhere near such equivocations.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media riot shutdowns possible under EU content law... by perihelions on Friday July 14, 2023 @04:59AM (#36721254)

That's kind of the point I was going for in my (post-edit) comment. EU countries are broadly very free countries, totally and qualitatively unlike the authoritarian exemplars. The threat of shutting down social media to quench political protests, specifically, is very, very like parallel examples from repressive dictatorships. It's a thought-terminating cliche to erase this second observation by overwriting it with the first.

[ Parent | on HN ]