EU crackdown on online miss-information

[Distinctly Average]

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Summary

 EU confront X and Facebook over Hamas posts giving the latter 2hrs to respond

 

Quotes

Quote

The EU has warned Mark Zuckerberg over the spread of "disinformation" on Meta's social media platforms after Hamas' attack on Israel. 

It told Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, it "has 24 hours" to respond and comply with European law.

Social media firms have seen a surge in misinformation about the conflict, including doctored images and mislabelled videos.

On Tuesday the EU warned X, formerly known as Twitter, about such content. 

The bloc's industry chief, Thierry Breton, told Meta it must prove it has taken "timely, diligent and objective action".

In a letter, he said the firm had 24 hours to tell him about the "proportionate and effective" measures it had taken to counter the spread of disinformation on its platforms.

 

My thoughts

 I am often torn on things like this. While I agree that any potentially dangerous miss-information should be removed, often it is a very fine line. History is often written by the winners, and I fear we may end up having that going on here.

 

Sources

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67073956

[Holmes108]

It's a super fine line, as you say. Even more so than usual with such a hot button political issue.

 

More than that, it's a virtual logistical impossibility to control on a site like FB or Twitter. How much action is "enough". 

 

I know these sites want their cake, and to eat it too, when it comes to whether or not they're "publishers", but it seems clear to me they aren't, as they have no means to edit/editorialize the content themselves at all, and individuals need to be held accountable, if breaking laws, for the most part.

 

[PDifolco]

It's Thierry Breton, he wants to look important, but the EU won't do anything except whining, as usual

[Dutch_Master]

2 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

the EU won't do anything except whining

This tells me 2 things:

• either you don't live in the EU and thus have no clue what the EU actually does for its citizens, or:
• you live in the EU and don't give a fsck about what the EU does for its citizens and you never inquired about it either

Actually, it tells me something more, but I won't digress as it'll most likely be taken as "personal"

[PDifolco]

14 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

This tells me 2 things:

• either you don't live in the EU and thus have no clue what the EU actually does for its citizens, or:
• you live in the EU and don't give a fsck about what the EU does for its citizens and you never inquired about it either

Actually, it tells me something more, but I won't digress as it'll most likely be taken as "personal"

I'm in France pal... So do I know what Thierry Breton is (un)able of, we had to bear him for decades before at last getting rid of him !

I was mostly talking about the X debate, where I'm sure the EU won't do anything more than threats

Now tell me about something good the EU has done for its citizens since 20 years if you want to have a debate here

 

[Holmes108]

How is something like this enforceable with a U.S company anyways? I know with the Microsoft/Activision thing, they were saying there'd be issues because MS "operates" in the EU. But does FB and or Twitter technically "operate" there?

 

What if there wasn't/isn't a physical presence? How to you try and apply rules to a website just because your citizens can access it? I'm assuming you can't? In a case like that, I guess the EU would possibly try to take steps to block access to the site? But then is that done nation by nation? 

[manikyath]

9 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Now tell me about something good the EU has done for its citizens since 20 years if you want to have a debate here

14 day no-fee return policy on all online stores.

[jagdtigger]

Oh ffs, this is just censorship in sheep clothing.....

[Dutch_Master]

7 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

if you want to have a debate here

This is not the place. But I'll give you something to contemplate about, although I won't be debating them.

• the aforementioned consumer rights
• free travel across borders (Schengen!) for people, goods and services
• single currency to accommodate the above, as well as make fairer comparisons between suppliers of goods and services across borders
• bailing out failing economies like France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal, all of which had chosen not to reform their economy when the economic/financial opportunity was there, so that those who had reformed their finances (Scandinavia, Germany and the Dutch) were strong enough to save the euro. Answer for yourself the simple question: where would you be, financially and economically, had the euro failed. (remember, there was widespread sentiment in those countries to cut loose those failing economies by having the euro fail and start a new currency where admission was exclusively on economic grounds, not political like the euro has become almost from its inception back in the 1990's)

[jagdtigger]

11 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

single currency to accommodate the above

Not entirely true because you can join schengen without joining the euro-zone.....

[PDifolco]

57 minutes ago, manikyath said:

14 day no-fee return policy on all online stores.

Yeah that's cool (but abusable too btw), but do we really need the EU for that ? Any country could  have made that alone... 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, PDifolco said:

Yeah that's cool (but abusable too btw), but do we really need the EU for that ? Any country could  have made that alone... 

but to guarantee free travel of goods tot he same standard across europe, it is important that such laws are made on a level that guarantees the rule applies across our very open borders.

 

i could bring up a lot more, and much more impactful and complicated examples, but to steer away from politics i took a very simple to understand example that is very on-topic to a tech hobby, because most of us get our parts from online stores.

 

PS; EU isnt perfect, not by a long shot. but it's not as bad as the alternative.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

This tells me 2 things:

• either you don't live in the EU and thus have no clue what the EU actually does for its citizens, or:
• you live in the EU and don't give a fsck about what the EU does for its citizens and you never inquired about it either

Actually, it tells me something more, but I won't digress as it'll most likely be taken as "personal"

EU wont do anything to these big companies,  that poster is exactly right...

 

 

what exactly do you think is gonna happen?  Twitter and fb starting to moderate their platforms? lmao  

[PhantomJaguarr]

4 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Now tell me about something good the EU has done for its citizens since 20 years if you want to have a debate here

Banning certain cancer-causing food additives that California is starting to copy also. 

[Distinctly Average]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

but to guarantee free travel of goods tot he same standard across europe, it is important that such laws are made on a level that guarantees the rule applies across our very open borders.

 

i could bring up a lot more, and much more impactful and complicated examples, but to steer away from politics i took a very simple to understand example that is very on-topic to a tech hobby, because most of us get our parts from online stores.

 

PS; EU isnt perfect, not by a long shot. but it's not as bad as the alternative.

I had hoped this wouldn’t get political, but I know it is hard with subjects like this. Unfortunately my country left the EU. 
 

My question is who decides what information is valid, and what is not? Some things are easy, but it gets more challenging with the other 90%. Many things can be attributed to locale too, what is frowned upon in one country is normal in another. That is what worries me with this kind of censorship. The EU do have the power to fine these companies, but is that actually going to change anything?

[Mihle]

11 hours ago, Holmes108 said:

How is something like this enforceable with a U.S company anyways? I know with the Microsoft/Activision thing, they were saying there'd be issues because MS "operates" in the EU. But does FB and or Twitter technically "operate" there?

 

What if there wasn't/isn't a physical presence? How to you try and apply rules to a website just because your citizens can access it? I'm assuming you can't? In a case like that, I guess the EU would possibly try to take steps to block access to the site? But then is that done nation by nation? 

Does not need physical locations to operate somewhere. For one they spesifically build their site to be used there with languages/translations and stuff. If Facebook and Twitter did not want to operate in EU they would have to for example not let EU IP address log in to their site.

 

When it comes to blocking websites, I believe that possibility would have to be done by nation by nation, yes. But I am not totally sure.

[Mihle]

10 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Yeah that's cool (but abusable too btw), but do we really need the EU for that ? Any country could  have made that alone... 

They could have, and some country governments would have if EU didn't exist, but I now for sure that many countries wouldn't have done it on their own too. Those have those laws because of EU.

 

11 hours ago, PDifolco said:

 

Now tell me about something good the EU has done for its citizens since 20 years if you want to have a debate here

 

• GDPR
• Common minimum emission standards (for example cars)
• Common minimum safety standards ( for example cars)
• "Warranty" on digital goods are getting implemented
• Apple has to switch to USB C (new law)
• Companies must keep spare parts available for things like dishwashers, clothes dryers and so on for 10 years minimum (new law)

Don't know what year it came so can't say it wasn't before 20 years, but:

• 2 year "warranty" on things you buy(it's not named warranty but still)

To mention some, can find more if you want to. There are more but can be a little tricky to find spesific things because I'd you search for it in Google, usually only the oldest or newest ones show up (or ones impacting internet the most like GDPR) shows up. Those in between require better googling. Plenty things are also small things, but lots of small good things ads up.

 

 

[strajk-]

12 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Now tell me about something good the EU has done for its citizens since 20 years if you want to have a debate here

 

- no fee return

- free roaming inside EU

- cable standardization like USB C

- removal batteries which is supposedly going to be enforced in 2027-2030

- GDPR which even by today is still not followed by many corps which have consequently been fined due to it

 

These are just 5 from the top of my head without looking it up, there are innumerous laws and regulations just in the EU Consumer side of things...don't know lad, you might be from France but like the other lad said, you seem clueless or just irrationally angry so you just flat-out say things without meaning them that are simply not true and extremely hyperbolic.

 

And yes, I am too an EU citizen, which is a false appeal to authority anyways, don't need to be from the EU to know what they have done for their EU citizens...

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, Holmes108 said:

How is something like this enforceable with a U.S company anyways? I know with the Microsoft/Activision thing, they were saying there'd be issues because MS "operates" in the EU. But does FB and or Twitter technically "operate" there?

 

What if there wasn't/isn't a physical presence? How to you try and apply rules to a website just because your citizens can access it? I'm assuming you can't? In a case like that, I guess the EU would possibly try to take steps to block access to the site? But then is that done nation by nation? 

Yes, they can enforce it and they have in the past.

It doesn't matter if it's a "physical presence" or not. If you can reach their services in the EU then they operate there. It's the same as with GDPR.

 

Just to be clear, Meta has physical presence in the EU as well. They have offices, employees and data centers in EU.

 

I am not so sure about Twitter since they seem to change things on a dime, but they used to have an office in Brussel. I am not sure if Twitter has its own data centers but they at the very least rent servers in the EU.

 

Then there are also things like owning domains from various European organisations (Facebook for example owns facebook.se, which is operated by the Swedish Internet Foundation). I am pretty sure Meta also has EU citizens on leadership positions. I know Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs is Brittish at the very least, although that's not part of the EU anymore. They probably have more though.

They are very much in every sense of the word operating in the EU. 

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, strajk- said:

- no fee return

- free roaming inside EU

- cable standardization like USB C

- removal batteries which is supposedly going to be enforced in 2027-2030

- GDPR which even by today is still not followed by many corps which have consequently been fined due to it

 

These are just 5 from the top of my head without looking it up, there are innumerous laws and regulations just in the EU Consumer side of things...don't know lad, you might be from France but like the other lad said, you seem clueless or just irrationally angry so you just flat-out say things without meaning them that are simply not true and extremely hyperbolic.

 

And yes, I am too an EU citizen, which is a false appeal to authority anyways, don't need to be from the EU to know what they have done for their EU citizens...

don't get me wrong,  EU does a lot of good things, but there's also a huge corruption problem, and a lot of wasted money especially in inter country transfers where aforementioned money goes right into some politicians hands instead of being used for what its supposed to be used (new roads for example) 

 

like yes, they will make a new road, but only 1% of what was intended,  rest goes into villas, yachts and "holiday in the caribic"...

 

and this is a *huge* problem which threatens to eventually end the oh so great EU long-term... 

[thechinchinsong]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

don't get me wrong,  EU does a lot of good things, but there's also a huge corruption problem, and a lot of wasted money especially in inter country transfers where aforementioned money goes right into some politicians hands instead of being used for what its supposed to be used (new roads for example) 

 

like yes, they will make a new road, but only 1% of what was intended,  rest goes into villas, yachts and "holiday in the caribic"...

 

and this is a *huge* problem which threatens to eventually end the oh so great EU long-term... 

That's more of a local country issue than an EU problem though. Without EU money, these projects either wouldn't be done in the first place, or local money would be used and even less would be allocated to actually completing the project. And where are you getting the 1% number from? It's definitely a problem, but its nowhere near an existential issue for the EU.

[wanderingfool2]

23 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

I am often torn on things like this. While I agree that any potentially dangerous miss-information should be removed, often it is a very fine line. History is often written by the winners, and I fear we may end up having that going on here.

The general issue I have with regulating "misinformation" is the whole concept of who decides what is misinformation.

 

If the last 4 years has taught us anything, it's that "misinformation" is classified as what the current state wants to be classified as it.  You don't hear the regulatory bodies going against the misinformation that bodes well in their favor...which is where I think at a certain point unless there is direct harm there shouldn't really be any regulations in regards to this.

 

I'm not going to mention the main examples of this, as I do think it gets into politics, but there are so many case of information being presented as misinformation  yet ultimately became true.  A clear example of this is J&J vaccine causing Myocarditis; the early data showed that it had a lot higher rate than was initially reported.  Yet anyone who so much as mentioned it was marked on social media as being a "vaccine denier"/"corrected" saying they were safe (despite that it eventually was switched to the much safer mRNA vaccines).  This while the heads of the companies were welcomed for saying 100% efficacy (but those were built on a small sample size) [essentially the dangerousness of saying 100% efficacy against death, when in reality it wasn't, yet having the symptoms labelled as misinformation ]

 

The above example is exactly why regulations should not exist to eliminate misinformation, or companies should not be fined for misinformation.  I agree with what you said, history is often written by the winners...but I would also say, "truth" is often provided by the influential

[darknessblade]

23 hours ago, manikyath said:

14 day no-fee return policy on all online stores.

Not forgetting:

 

-2 years Minimum mandatory warranty

{Which certain companies I shall not name have violated on multiple occasions in the past, by claiming their 1 year "limited" warranty is just as good as the EU mandatory 2 years}

 

-Free returns on repairs.

-no fees for ANY kind of repair within the warranty regulations.

 

-Forcing HP to allow 3rd party ink [which HP tries to rollback every 2 years, only to get *fined again, and be forced to undo said update blocking 3rd party ink]

 

*of which I am of the opinion that the EU should stop giving singular fines, but COMPOUND fines, meaning the old fines stack on top of the new one. as there is a proven case that HP is KNOWINGLY doing it with malicious intent.

 

-GDPR privacy regulations, forcing any foreign company to honor your privacy rights.

{California has the CCP regulations, which is similar to GDPR}

 

And the list goes on and on

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

That's more of a local country issue than an EU problem though

... its just a problem in every country i know... so i must assume that your assumption here is highly incorrect. 

 

 

2 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

Without EU money, these projects either wouldn't be done

i would welcome this because im not exactly keen to pay for these "projects" the holidays in the caribic of the entire Italian parliament* with my tax money  

 

*insert any other mafia state here

 

 

2 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

And where are you getting the 1% number from?

 that's your gatcha moment...?

 

** ok because im sure you want an "example" (out of hundreds I personally know of)

Spoiler

So in - unnamed county in unnamed country -- definitely nowhere in italy!! no!! -- every farmer got 20k € to make a fence against... wait for it.....  wolves...! yes. entire country maybe has 5 lol

 

 

So what they did was built a fence... for like 2000 bucks on average (very, incredibly cheap and flimsy ones) ... and guess where the other 18k went? yes, exactly,  aloah Bahamas, baby!  because of course they did...

 

 

again,  one example of many and yeah, im *very* much against these "EU projects" .

 

the idea of EU is (was) a good one, but the people currently working on this have no decency,  its all just corruption and buddy buddy business... 

 

not my thing, its destined to fail if they don't change 

.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

eh, Im not gonna convince you and im not convinced the EU is gonna fall apart in the next decade. Agree to disagree. 
 

do think this is a good crackdown in the short term but its has lots of potential for abuse in the future.

yes, surely we can agree to disagree,  but let me ask do you really think this will lead to considerably less spreading of misinformation through these networks (which call themselves "social media")?