Among those who think America is a cesspool of anachronistic, unrestricted opinions; Those ones Europe is often touted as an alternative to speech regulation. EU law follows national legislation in imposing enforceable obligations on private platforms to remove “hate speech” and “disinformation” – or else. But free speech advocates warn that these laws are clumsy and dangerous tools that have the potential to limit free speech well beyond their nominal goals. They were right, they now have receipts.
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Europe’s Intrusive Speech Regulations
In a new report, Preventing the “torrent of hate” or stifling free expression online?The Vanderbilt University think tank “The Future of Free Speech” pointed out that Internet regulation changed in 2017 with the passage of the Internet Law Enforcement Act (NetzDG) in Germany. “This act aims to combat defamation, incitement and defamation.” Illegal Internet Content”. Religious insult. The law, along with similar EU-wide legislation in the Digital Services Act 2022 (DSA), has inspired lawmakers around the world. “Underlying assumptions surrounding the passage of the DSA include fears that the internet and social media platforms will be rife with hate and illegality,” the report states. content. “
But “hate” and other forms of unacceptable content are often in the eye of the beholder. The power to punish platforms that allow banned speech encourages the suppression of content.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned in 2022 that the DSA “gives government agencies too much power to flag and remove potentially illegal content and reveal data about anonymous speakers.”
“The Digital Services Act would essentially force big tech companies to act as privatized censors on behalf of the government — censors who would have broad discretion under vague and subjective standards,” said Michael, now executive director of the Future of Free Speech. Jacob McChamma warns.
Now, these laws are in effect. What does the new report find about their implementation?
Forbidden but legal
“In France, Germany and Sweden, most of the content removed from Facebook and YouTube posts was legitimate online speech,” the report said. “Among the deleted comments examined across platforms and countries, differences in the samples varied. , 87.5% to 99.7% of deleted comments are permitted by law. Germany has the highest proportion of deleted comments permitted by law, with 99.7% and 98.9% of deleted comments being permitted by law.
Remember, Europe is not a First Amendment jurisdiction; Europe is a First Amendment jurisdiction. There, speech laws are more restrictive and people can be punished for saying things that would hardly offend Americans. For example, Germany arrested a comedian for insulting Turkey’s president but dropped the case after facing ridicule. Denmark has banned the burning of holy books after a series of Quran-burning torches. Still, most content removed from social media is allowed even under local laws.
The authors of “The Future of Free Speech” added: “The vast majority of removed comments investigated were legal, suggesting that contrary to popular belief, excessive removal of legal content may be a bigger problem than removal of illegal content.”
Huge incentive to suppress speech
Taking Germany, where NetzDG’s restrictions are in effect, as an example, the report speculates that social media companies “may excessively remove content to evade the legislation’s hefty fines.”
But online companies have good reason to be wary not only of German officials but also of the broader EU bureaucracy, which is forever investigating and fining Big Tech. Last year, Facebook was fined $1.3 billion for allegedly violating data privacy.
“This fine is second only to two fines levied against Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) in 2018 and 2017,” commented Investopedia’s Mack Wilowski. “This is the largest fine so far this year.”
In July 2023, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton warned online companies that “if they do not take immediate action” to remove content that government officials deem unacceptable, “by then we will not only be able to impose fines , you can also disable operations [of the platforms] on our territory.
Given the potential for hefty fines and even outright bans in Europe, it’s no surprise that web companies might be overzealous in pulling content from their servers. It’s not exactly a heroic act, but it’s certainly safer to respond to public complaints and criticism from civil liberties groups than to attract the attention of sneering and punitive European officials.
news you can’t use
Not surprisingly, high-profile current events figure prominently in suppressed content. “Overall, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine emerged as a prominent theme in comments removed by all three countries,” the report states. Additionally, many of the more memorable French comments involved the police killing of a 17-year-old and the subsequent riots. .
That said, discussing world news seems like a good way to get censored in the EU.
But overall, how widespread is suppression, even allowing so much censored content without breaking the rules? The report states that 3.4% of all comments were deleted. The proportion varied across the three countries studied, ranging from 0.83% in Sweden, 3.18% in France, to 4.53% in Germany. Interestingly, in a separate index of approval of free speech, Swedes were highly tolerant of controversial speech. The country ranks fourth, behind the United States. In comparison, France and Germany ranked 14th and 15th respectively, with mediocre performance. Enforcement of speech regulation can be weak across the board, but this appears to be more common in cultures that are less tolerant of free speech.
The report concludes: “A system based on shallow empirical evidence has been created that undermines free speech, with governments giving (private) social media giants the key and, increasingly, the obligation to guide the speech of billions of people, essentially Above is the decisive digital discourse.
For those of us who believe in freedom, this is a problem. Whether government officials agree that intrusive censorship is one issue is another.
