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https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/29/even-the-most-well-meaning-internet-regulations-can-cause-real-harm/>
"Here’s how people advocating for internet regulations for “bad speech” think
things will work: an enlightened group of pure-minded, thoughtful individuals
will carefully outlaw dangerous speech that invokes hatred, or encourages bad
behavior. Then, that speech will magically and cleanly disappear from the
internet, and the internet will be a better place.
What could go wrong? Turns out, pretty much everything.
Here’s how such things work in reality: laws are written that are broadly
applicable to appease a variety of interests. Then those in power get upset
about some sort of speech. And, even if they’re well-meaning politicians, they
realize, ‘surely, what’s the harm in using these laws to stop this kind of
speech?’ And that’s how hate speech laws are used to jail French citizens for
comparing their President to Hitler. Or to force a website to take down speech
calling Germany’s Justice Minister “an idiot.” Or to jail critics of the
government. Or how there’s a push to make criticizing the police into hate
speech. The list goes on and on.
That’s not to say those creating the laws aren’t well-intentioned. Some of them
really are. Many people keep telling me that we need to outlaw bad speech
online or to force websites to “be responsible” for the bad speech online.
And I keep trying to point out that the well-intentioned people calling for
such laws are unlikely to be the people determining what is “good speech” and
what is “bad speech.” Over and over again, the people calling for such laws are
unlikely to like the choices made by those who get to decide how those laws are
used.
Laws to crack down on “bad” speech, even well-intentioned ones, are open to
very serious abuse. It is important to think about this, because we do see all
sorts of not well-intentioned laws, and we criticize those all the time as
well. But understanding how even well-intentioned laws can go wrong is equally
important, to avoid enabling dangerous abuses of power."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
