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Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by lhnz on Monday December 18, 2023 @09:54AM (#38683281)
The press release itself says that the formal proceeding concern "the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel" and the person you refer to as "some guy" is a adjunct professor of law at a few institutions, as well as a legal fellow of the Adam Smith Institute where his research interests have focused on free speech and related technology regulation.
Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by Vinnl on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:34AM (#38683822)
He might have relevant research interests, but he's still not pointing to a source that shows that "illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel" refers to all footage of those attacks. Presumably, such a source exists? If so, it would still be great to see a link to it.
Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by lhnz on Monday December 18, 2023 @11:19AM (#38684557)
The EU's Digital Services Act permits the gathering of evidence and enforcement activities to be conducted confidentially behind closed doors. It does not require the EU to make their evidence available to the public, particularly when information is considered to be sensitive. This approach aims to preserve the integrity of the investigation and to protect the rights of involved parties.

Once such a law is passed there is no right to public scrutiny. While certain aspects of the process may not be open to public scrutiny, this does not entirely preclude the public's right to some level of transparency as it is stipulated that any decisions taken will be widely publicised (paragraph 101). That is, once they've made their judgement the matter will be settled and a superficial amount of information will be released to the public.

This is exactly why I think it's so important for us to speak openly about the speech rights we expect on the platforms we use and the level of policing of speech we're happy for there to be. If we don't do so, lawmakers can and do pass draconian laws that take these considerations away from us, and at this point we have little recourse to rollback our loss of freedom.

I'm not a free speech absolutist but believe that it's incredibly wrongheaded to try to argue away conversation about this as being without evidence particularly after lawmakers passed laws that denied us this same evidence. Blithely allowing lawmakers to pass laws that enable confidential evaluation of evidence limiting public scrutiny, but then afterwards criticising public discourse for lacking evidence without acknowledging that access to such evidence has been restricted by the same laws -- what a manipulative argument/framing!

The whole conversation on speech rights is also incorrectly centered in my opinion, as freedom of speech rights are centered on the speaker instead of the audience/public. I personally find myself advocating the following approach to speech rights:

  > "It’s not just the right of the person who speaks to
  >  be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience
  >  to listen and to hear."
Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by Vinnl on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:03PM (#38688990)
Absolutely, more transparency there would be great. But you said:

> Apparently the dissemination of illegal content refers to the October 7th videos of the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel that galvanized American support for Israel

...which does not to me seem to be a conclusion you can draw from a lack of evidence.

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by lhnz on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:45PM (#38689482)
I think they intend for their tactics to cause damage, but I do not think that they have set forwards reasonable evidence for their proceedings, or even been clear what they consider illegal or whether it's merely a case of them disallowing automated moderation tools.

When they said "dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel" I can only assume that it refers to the October 7th attack by Hamas upon Israel and not to another attack.

Of course, it could refer to a specific video posted during this time period that they consider to be disinformation, however, taking action against a singular video would be quite over-the-top which is why I believe they're referring to the overall dissemination of videos around this time.

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by Vinnl on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @02:55AM (#38693012)
Oh, I think it's absolutely clear that they're referring to those attacks. However, you said that they didn't want footage of those attacks in general to be spread, rather than misinformation about those attacks.

So as far as I know, it would probably have been fine to share videos showing eg the damage to a hospital, but not to post a deepfake showing Oprah planning the destruction of a hospital.

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by willsoon on Monday December 18, 2023 @06:20PM (#38689773)
> or to hear not."

You forgot one line.

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by crote on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:23AM (#38683652)
Sooo, what's the "illegal content" here? Because I saw quite a few people calling for various forms of genocide against either party, and that's pretty illegal too.

While actual factual videos about the attack are undoubtedly newsworthy and should not be banned, claiming that promoting genocide is be in the people's interest would be a bit of a stretch, would it not?

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by ExoticPearTree on Monday December 18, 2023 @02:51PM (#38687284)
This is what bugs me the most: "preventing" stuff by censoring it. Let people call for whatever they want on the "other" side and punish only those that perpetrate such acts that are illegal in a country or another. But let people speak their minds without any repercussion. I wager that will let a lot of people blow off some steam and then go on with their lives.
Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by downWidOutaFite on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:10AM (#38683476)
Some guy's credentials have nothing to do with the lack of evidence provided.
Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by lhnz on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:25AM (#38683688)
1. His credentials are literally relevant to the evaluation that he is "some guy" and therefore not able to weigh in on free speech and related technology regulation. Specifically, this is his area of interest and he is capable of giving expert opinions on this.

2. The claim in question was within the EU's press release itself, however, the EU haven't made their specific evidence publicly available. It's quite likely that others also aren't allowed to divulge specifics but this doesn't mean that they haven't seen evidence or that the EU hasn't provided any evidence.

Re:EU opens proceedings against X over efforts to combat inf... by downWidOutaFite on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:39AM (#38683905)
Some guy isn't just giving his opinion, "If memory serves" implies that he has knowledge of an unreleased EU government report but his credentials seem to be of an american or maybe uk corporate lawyer and barely a professor at an american university. No reason to believe he has privileged access to the report. Though there is reason to believe he's practiced in the arts of online propaganda wars.