E.U.'s Top Court Rules Against Facebook in Global Takedown Case

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times




LONDON — Europe’s top court said on Thursday that an individual country can order Facebook to take down posts, photographs and videos and restrict global access to that material, in a ruling that has implications for whether countries can expand content bans beyond their borders.

The European Court of Justice’s decision came after a former Austrian politician sought to have Facebook remove disparaging comments about her that had been posted on an individual’s personal page, as well as “equivalent” messages posted by others. The politician, Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, a former leader of Austria’s Green Party, argued that Facebook needed to delete the material in the country and limit worldwide access. The decision is a blow to big internet platforms like Facebook, placing more responsibility on them to patrol their sites for content ruled illegal.

The case has been closely watched because of its potential ripple effects for regulating internet content. The enforcement of defamation, libel and privacy laws varies from country to country, with language and behavior that is allowed in one nation prohibited in another. The court’s decision highlights the difficulty of creating uniform standards to govern an inherently borderless web and then enforcing them.

Facebook and other critics have warned that letting a single nation force an internet platform to delete material elsewhere would hurt free expression. Implementing such a global ban would likely require the use of automated content filters, which civil society groups and others have cautioned could lead to the takedown of legitimate material because filters cannot detect nuances used in satire and some political speech. Removing not just the original post, but those considered “equivalent,” adds further complication and potential for unintended consequences, opponents argued prior to the decision.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/technology/eu-facebook-defamation.html

[PoliticAverse]

1. Well that sucks. n/t

[Hal Zerozerozeronine]

2. Fuck Zuck

Facebook is poison: anything that knocks it down a few pegs is OK with me!

[Oppaloopa]

3. Me too. Never had it never will.

[Perseus]

4. Agreed. Incredible how a business made people's lives its product

and the people willingly have complied by constantly exposing themselves and giving away their privacy.

I think that if Facebook is to continue to exist that it must be heavily regulated.

[flibbitygiblets]

5. Let's add Google to that "should be mandated" thing too while we're at it

I just love it when my TV or phone suddenly start asking me about my conversation when I'd explicitly turned that shit off.

[dalton99a]

10. +1

[Snake Plissken]

6. Facebook is a toxic environment for anyone foolish enough to use it as a news source

Facebook absolutely has it's benefits, to claim otherwise is foolish, it provides an efficient means for families to communicate and post photos, it's private groups are all very benefits for people with common interests, and there are hundreds of other examples,


but to use it as a news source it is absolutely toxic, full of disinformation and just plain garbage, even local TV stations use it as means for click bait, but the worst part is companies similar to Cambridge Analytica which still exist, constantly crawl Facebook building patterns and report anyone who posts comments with key words which are negative to far right wing interests.

I don't have a Facebook account that uses my real name, but I do have one which I use primarily as means to access groups for tech support of various products I use.

Every now and then I'll visit the public feeds of my local TV stations and comment without instance, but if I make comment about Trump, the next time I try to log on, I get a warning about suspicious activity and have to reset my password, sometimes it's due to bots trying to gain access to my account and other times it's due to multiple complaints about my comment.

This never happens if I leave a comment on a feed that is private or requires approval for the group moderator to flag comments.

I have no doubt that companies funded by the likes of Robert Mercer have programed scripts which scour facebook for certain patterns of words in comments and automatically flag not just those comments but all the comments that particular person has left in an attempt to discourage them from using Facebook altogether as a means to filter out all comments which are critical of right wing concerns

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Pulverize it into little local neighborhoods

End the exploitation

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Teddy Roosevelt Trustbuster Style! /nt

[defacto7]

9. Ditto

[sdfernando]

11. come on people...delete your facebook accounts

I was never a big user or prolific poster on facebook although I did have an account. I finally fully deleted the account after the Cambridge Analytics fiasco....don't use now, never will go back.

[not fooled]

12. Someone has the right idea

[link:https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-mark-zuckerberg-breaking-up-facebook-2019-10|]

2020 US presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going after Mark Zuckerberg and his company, Facebook.
Warren argues that Facebook is in violation of antitrust laws, and should be broken up to encourage competition in the market.
In a leaked audio recording of a meeting from July, Zuckerberg said he would "go to the mat and fight" over any push to break up Facebook
Warren took to Twitter on Tuesday to make the case for breaking up the social media conglomerate: "Imagine Facebook and Instagram trying to outdo each other to protect your privacy and keep misinformation out of your feed, instead of working together to sell your data, inundate you with misinformation, and undermine our election security."