
U.K. unveils plan to penalize Facebook and Google for harmful online content - hn_throwaway_99
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/07/uk-unveils-sweeping-plan-penalize-facebook-google-harmful-online-content/
======
csmattryder
I suppose it's easier to "ban the internet" rather than fix the societal
issues that have lead to people integrating with the sort of communities that
share harmful content - that requires serious effort.

Having said that, Facebook et al. are US-based corporations, they'll take as
much notice of this as me whinging about privacy violations.

We've also got that porn-pass coming in soon, apparently. Both of these
government internet plans are completely routed with the use of a VPN.

~~~
arethuza
They may be US-based corporations but they will have wholly owned subsidiaries
here in the UK - looking at Companies House (where you can see their audited
accounts) in 2017 Facebook UK had a turnover of a billion pounds, probably a
good bit higher by now:

[https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310](https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310)

~~~
csmattryder
When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them to
demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I'll concede that
the law can take on these corporations.

Last I noticed, best they've had is some third-party contractor for Facebook,
and they had to get the serjeant-at-arms to pin him down at his hotel.

If it hits the fan and they go to take profits, nothing stopping them pulling
an Amazon and taking the cash out to a subsidiary abroad.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them
> to demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I 'll concede
> that the law can take on these corporations_

The UK has broad extradition rights with the United States. If Parliament
wanted to get nasty, they could.

~~~
arethuza
In a world where the UK might be struggling to find international friends I
don't think anyone would be daft enough to try and extradite a leading citizen
of the US.

The chances of the US agreeing to any such extradition are even smaller.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _a leading citizen of the US_

If the UK charged him and got British court approval, American courts would
defer. Given Zuckerberg’s present standing, it’s unlikely Congress would
attempt to intervene.

------
pmlnr
Are these regulation dangerous? Yes, they are. They can easily be bent to
censor, to cover up nearly anything.

But are these regulation useful? Yes, they are.

When I was a teenager online - early 2000s - extreme violence was hidden
behind obscure websites, not even indexed by search engines. I had friends who
had "shocking videos" \- think videos of actual killings - and I really tried
to stay as far as I could.

In the past few years articles and publications regularly emerge that these
topics and videos are now basically mainstream. After deep diving into
instagram, tumblr, or twitter, to see if these claims are real, I'm going to
say, they are, and this is very far from healthy.

We need some regulations; I'm only afraid they will be an overshoot, for what
the chances are too high.

~~~
Maken
> When I was a teenager online - early 2000s - extreme violence was hidden
> behind obscure websites, not even indexed by search engines. I had friends
> who had "shocking videos" \- think videos of actual killings - and I really
> tried to stay as far as I could.

And having access to them caused them any kind of incurable psychological
damage or something? Because most of the time I doubt the usefulness of any of
those "we need to protect the children at all costs" regulations.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Not arguing one way or the other for these regulations, but I think dismissing
the negative effects of this type of online content is a huge mistake, as it
_does_ cause real, sizable problems. ISIS probably wouldn't have been able to
exist without their propaganda videos. Multiple mass shootings had direct
connections to the perpetrators' radicalization in online forums. Fake,
foreign-state-sponsored news had an impact in democratic elections from the
2016 US presidential election to Brexit.

It's one thing to argue these regulations will have negative (unintended or
otherwise) consequences, but it's quite another to just pretend the porblem
doesn't exist.

~~~
hellisothers
ISIS and other “bad things” you’re probably right to some extent, but what
about all the good things that wouldn’t exist either? Awareness of police
brutality, corporate corruption, country wide revolutions, marginalized
people’s rights, an individual blossoming in an online community. The list
goes on, there is much debate to the point that this type of regulation will
cause “takedown by default” for all content and push the good and bad to the
fringe.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I absolutely agree, but as you point out you need to honestly look at both
sides of the coin, not pretend that one side of the coin has no negatives at
all.

------
feintruled
Weird how Zuckerberg is actually pushing for this kind of action:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/30/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-
ti...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/30/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-tighter-
internet-regulations-we-need-a-more-active-role-for-governments.html)

Makes me smell a rat. Perhaps a world in which Facebook can delete whatever
posts they choose at the drop of a hat citing vague 'issues' is one they
actively want?

------
mschuster91
Can we all please stop electing politicians that understand _nothing_ about
the Internet?

This runs in the same vein as the "terrorism filters" that the EU plans to
introduce after the "upload filters". They want to revert public discourse to
the "old" model with newspapers as moderating gatekeepers and to kill
independent (and free) venues.

This is not about terrorism, porn or "national security", this is about re-
entering the Middle Ages. And the problem is that thanks to the ultimatively
arrogant "disruption" culture the big tech companies are in a defensive
position now and not an offensive one.

------
setquk
Well at least we're leading in something in the UK still: craziness.

------
throw2016
There is always 'censorship' in operation. Either overtly when things are not
allowed or covertly where some things are simply not aired, people not given
visas, opportunities, blacklisted and generally isolated. The problem is when
people take an absolute and utopian position pretending these are actually not
in effect when they always have.

Perfect examples are hate speech and incitement to violence and even things
like nudity and pornography. Most countries have laws against this. For
instance most islamic extremism videos and content are already banned and
taken down rapidly, preachers and other known purveyors of hate are not given
visas and are not allowed to air their views. That's clear cut and no one has
a problem with it.

Since most ideologies and religions have an extreme element they will
propagate extreme views and incite hate, and the question then becomes if you
are comfortable having social media full of people openly spreading hate
against religions, race, sex or any other subgroup.

And its here we must explicitly beware of double standards and some people
supporting some kinds of extremism opportunistically and muddying the waters
under the pretext of free speech because it doesn't threaten them personally.

------
Zenst
Are we entering an age when we will in effect end up with geo-fenced content
filtering firewalls built on the back of that lovely catch-all `political
correctness`.

Look at the great firewall of China, how was that perceived initially and how
is that perceived today. For some the perspective is still the same, for
others, they see a more upfront way compared to how we are in effect seeing
Governments implement comparable systems by forcing that filtering and content
blocking/restrictions upon private companies.

Whilst we are all for free speech and openness, we see governments all around
the World curtailing those area's on the back of laws and regulations that are
born out of a small minority and edge-cases.

After all - seeing sites blocked on the net because 0.01% of the content falls
foul of some law or regulation and that being classed as fine. Yet transpose
that same mentality onto people and cries of discrimination and racism jump
right out at you.

Are we seeing the majority of people being sleep-walked into being firewalled
upon what content they can see and what they can say akin to the great
firewall of China? Sadly, I think we are.

------
john_minsk
The act is illegal. Should we penalize police for not being able to stop this
action?

How is the information about the act illegal?

~~~
gnode
Expecting police to prevent all crime is fantastical. Police generally serve
to enable punishment, deterrence and incapacitation of criminals.

Furthermore, there is a distinction in motivation between propaganda and
journalism, but the information itself is unaware of this. If a terrorist
beheads someone, then sends a video of it to a journalist who publishes it, is
the journalist simply reporting the news, or are they aiding terrorism?
Certainly, the video may influence the audience, and cause fear, as the
terrorist desires. How we can, or even whether we should solve issues like
this is a polarising topic.

------
kmlx
so what about websites that only deal in "harmful" content?

~~~
rootlocus
nothing compares to the traffic social media receives.

------
papermill
The UK does it and the media spins it as "penalizing social media for harmful
online content". China does it and the same media spins it as "oppressing,
tyrannizing and controlling the people".

Just like when germany passed censorship laws, the media praised it and russia
copied the german censorship laws and the media spun it as "tyrant oppressing
and controlling the russian people".

So is romeo and juliet going to be banned suicide because it "encourages"
suicide? What about suicide/euthanasia documentaries which support doctor-
assisted end of life programs?

What about books like ( bible, koran, mein kampf, etc ) that encourages
violence? Is project gutenberg going to be shut down? What about all the media
companies who supported wars in iraq, libya and the middle east? Are they
going to be shut down? Are they going to be shut down for encouraging
violence?

We have government agencies that spread fake news and disinformation. Is that
going to be banned? What about PR firms whose business is spreading fake news
and disinformation?

And what is children accessing inappropriate material? A christian or muslim
parent thinks that lgbt material is inappropriate. Does that mean we have to
scrub the internet of lgbt material? An atheist might be religious material as
inappropriate for children. Do we ban religious material from the internet?

Whenever politicians use "children" as an excuse to justify more laws and
regulations, it's rarely about protecting children. These people don't care
about children. They care about power and control.

Once agin, the UK is at the forefront of censorship.

------
kmlx
this is the end result of news titles such as "facebook elected trump",
"facebook caused genocide", "facebook is at fault in New Zealand", "facebook
caused Brexit".

------
doctorstupid
When you don't like what you see in the mirror, it's easiest to just blame the
mirror.

~~~
mhandley
But if repeatedly looking in the mirror actually causes you to become more
vain, or develop body dysmorphic disorder, then the mirror itself might not be
entirely healthy. Cause and effect in societal matters are complex; there are
usually no simple fixes, but that doesn't mean we should never try. Whether
this particular attempt will be successful, I doubt though.

~~~
jstanley
If the mirror is harmful, you can stop using it. You don't need to cripple
mirrors for everyone else.

~~~
rootlocus
If people knew when to stop, we wouldn't have addiction problems. If people
knew what was bad for them and could stop, well, that would be a very
different world.

------
TorKlingberg
The current debate about tech industry / social media regulation is really
frustrating to me, both on HN and elsewhere. First, there are a lot of people
calling for regulation without thinking through the consequences. I see a lot
of right-wingers and even libertarians thinking regulation will force tech
companies to allow more racist etc content. That is not going to happen.
Regulations will make social media companies be even stricter on "extremist
content", whether of the Islamist or white racist variety.

Second, people here refuse to engage with the arguments of those proposing
regulations. There are real problems that we will not be able to brush off. On
the internet, "think of the children" has long been a sarcastic phrase. In
reality, faced with a choose between allowing for example pro-ana content that
encourage teenagers to starve themselves to death, and annoying 25-year-olds
who want a free internet, most people will choose regulation.

~~~
nkkollaw
Whatever pro-ana content is, there have been books about starving yourself,
building bombs, committing genocides and whatnot since printing was invented.

It is not the platform's or the internet's responsibility if a minuscule
percentage of teenagers starve themselves to death because they watch a video.
If a teenager isn't equipped enough to be able to not starve himself to death
because someone on the internet tells him to do so, it is the parents' fault,
and the parents' responsibility to keep that teenager off the internet and
into a psychiatrist or psychologist office.

~~~
gnode
> it is the parents' fault, and the parents' responsibility

The idea that parents should have such sole responsibility over their children
is one extreme of a spectrum of opinion. UK government policy tends to be on
the other end of that spectrum, with the opinion that children are the state's
responsibility, with forced adoption being used much more readily than the
rest of Europe, for example.

It's also hard to reconcile the idea of childrens' mental health being the
sole responsibility of parents with the causes of childhood mental health
problems very commonly being abusive and neglectful parenting.

~~~
nkkollaw
I agree, that's how the UK does it. It's a communist view of State though, and
it's awful.

Children should be educated and protected by their parents and family, not the
State. First, because very kid is different and it's unthinkable to create a
catch-all solution that is good for everybody. Second, what is the State good
at? Anything that is done at the government level is about 100 times worse
than private businesses, and 1000 times worse than what the vast majority of
parents can do. You don't want the State deciding what you are allowed to look
at on the internet, if anything they would do more damage than anything else.

I also don't get why people have to freak out about everything nowadays, as if
kids are completely helpless against the outside world. When I was a kid there
was all kind of extremely dangerous stuff going on, and as kids we got warned
by our parents and everyone is still alive.

~~~
gnode
> and as kids we got warned by our parents and everyone is still alive.

Not every child has this though. Parents vary greatly in competence and
ethics, and virtually every society and government recognises children as
having rights separable from their parents' and draws a line somewhere as to
what parental conduct is acceptable.

In addition to not being granted every responsibility, parents often don't
want every responsibility. Most people in western societies expect the state
to provide education, and some level of public security.

That said, I agree that the UK takes this to an authoritarian extreme.

~~~
nkkollaw
Yes, let's say that the UK draws it so far from where it should be, then I
think most parents should feel like the State is way beyond its responsibility
and into attempting to control its citizens.

