T. Belman. This is an enormous threat to our liberty. The establishment and the MSM are threatened as never before with the rise of social media which is controlling the message and thus undermining their power. They are are desperate. They have created a new category to be banned. News called fake news where they alone decide what is fake. Essentially it is any truth they don’t like the public to know. At the same time they suppress the telling of truth by any part of the establishment, when that truth is at odds with the message they want to deliver.
George Orwell’s 1984 is upon us.
The unelected executive arm of the European Union (EU) is threatening to escalate from “non-legislative” action if Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube do not censor what it considers “illegal” online speech within 24 hours.
In May of this year, the U.S. tech giants signed a “code of conduct”, promising to work with the Commission and national law enforcement to “criminalize” and “sanction” “individual perpetrators” as well as committing to “promoting independent counter-narratives” that the EU favours.
Speaking on Sunday, the EU’s justice commissioner added “fake news” to the list of what they want censored online.
The “series of commitments to combat the spread of illegal hate speech online in Europe” developed “together with… the IT companies” included a promise to “review the majority” of flagged “hate speech” within 24 hours.
However, a new European Commission report has claimed this has only been happening in Germany and France so far, and censorship often takes too long. Consequently, one commissioner implied they could pass new censorship laws if the “non-legislative approach” fails.
The review found that 40 per cent of recorded cases were reviewed within 24 hours, but the figure rose above 80 per cent after 48 hours. Twitter was slowest to respond while YouTube was fastest.
EU Justice Commissioner V?ra Jourová told The Financial Times (FT): “If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months.”
She added: “The last weeks and months have shown that social media companies need to live up to their important role and take up their share of responsibility when it comes to phenomena like online radicalisation, illegal hate speech or fake news.”
According to the FT, the report found removal rates were in excess of 50 per cent in Germany and France but as low as 4 per cent in Italy and 11 per cent in Austria.
Of the 600 cases notified, 316 were deemed to require a response from companies. Ms. Jourová’s report said 163 items were deleted and 153 were not removed because the companies concluded there was no breach of legislation or community rules.
Civil rights and free speech activists have harshly criticised the “code of conduct” for its worryingly loose and broad definition of “hate speech”.
UKIP’s former Justice and Home Affairs spokeswoman and (briefly) leader Diane James MEP told Breitbart London in May:
“This legislation is so vague that it is the thin end of the wedge not just to curb hate speech but free speech as well.
“Different people and cultures across Europe have different ways of communicating. The Liberal tradition in Britain for instance is more open and very different from that of dictatorial former Communist countries in the East.”
She added: “In my opinion, if the EU still allows to me have an opinion, I believe this matter should be decided by national parliaments rather than the unelected European Commission.“
I lean towards the Pinochet solution for seditious folks like this. We need to find a way to defuse the dangers caused by the abuse of their massive wealth which seeks to deprive us of our liberties and manipulate us. Seizing their assets under rico type and terror type laws might be a start, they do it for drug dealers and I believe terrorists.. prior to trial. Schmidts actions to use his wealth to feed us disinformation is similar to Tokyo rose and Lord Hee Haw.
Do we want a few greedy billionaires to censor our information? It would seem to me that some of the behavior of the EU violates some of our legal criteria for aid and cooperation. furthermore, facebook may be violating our FCC licensing standards and the constitution as the info they censor is likely read by american subscribers.
These moguls and their bought pols have too much influence on our freedoms and economy. IMO, it is a form of sedition, sabotage and treason to spread disinformation in support of a foreign agenda which undermines our constitution…. that would be my story when I seized their assets and charged them with sedition, sabotage and terrorism before shipping them to guantanmo where they disappear permanently.
We should not be surprised if these leftist usurpations of our freedoms brings support for those willing to purge them…. this is how folks end up supporting the hitlers and the pinochets. When the pendulum swings absurdly and radically in one direction we should expect the correcting swing in the other direction. Jews should not find themselves at the wrong end of the pendulum when it swings the other way. Survival trumps fake news and fake principles. When we see those who disseminate the fake news activating their networks to accuse, through orwellian doublespeak, the dissenters of their own crimes…… we should recognize where we are on that unfailing pendulum swing.
Nature corrects naturally.
Everything should be done to stop these fraudulent and crooked folks before the backlash swing is heinous and uncontrollable. best to cut out the cancers before they destroy the whole body
The billionaires must subject themselves to our bill of rights or be treated as terrorists.