
Mozilla CEO urges European Commission to seize once-in-a-generation opportunity - sornars
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/09/07/mozilla-ceo-mitchell-baker-urges-european-commission-to-seize-once-in-a-generation-opportunity/
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rbecker
From the letter: _Any regulation needs to encourage comprehensive content
responsibility, meaning companies are accountable for ensuring their practices
and processes do not give undue amplification to harmful and illegal content._

Does the same viral amplification of normal content become "undue" when
applied to "harmful" (I'm sure the definition won't be abused!) content?
Meaning platforms will have to preemptively police and suppress such content,
or be held liable?

I would have expected a company supposedly devoted to user freedom such as
Mozilla to know better than to endorse censorship through vague messaging like
this.

~~~
justforyou
Endorsing censorship seems right in line with all of the other terrible
decisions made by mozilla as of late.

Leadership team needs to go, start with the CEO.

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raxxorrax
I don't think UvdL is the correct figure to spearhead such an approach. She
might be popular outside of Germany because people cannot understand what she
says and she isn't really know for digital competency.

> For too many individuals and groups, the internet today is not an empowering
> outlet for free expression

I disagree. On the contrary we see classical news outlets preferred in search
results because of direct business relations with Google and the false info
hysteria, that is stressed in this letter. This has infested search results
that are only tangentially related to the news business. "Foster diverse and
reliable media content" shall mean mainstream media sources.

Was Covid a disaster because of misinformation? I don't think so. People being
knee-jerks about wearing masks has multiple causes.

Otherwise I agree for the issue of transparency when it comes to ads. It is a
seriously toxic industry that needs strong legal borders for their operation.

The EU also wants to market health data of its citizens which can make you
look envious at the UK, although I am sure their government is just as
incapable on digital technologies.

However, digital policies should not be delegated to the EU, since it doesn't
have the capacity and legitimization in my opinion. So I cannot really see the
once-in-a-generation opportunity aside from maybe using the pandemic to
implement unpopular decisions, which I hope Mozilla would define upfront.

