French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the European Union will work towards regulating social media platforms by establishing liability for “hate speech.”
“This is unprecedented European regulation to fight online hate, to define the responsibility of these large platforms for their content,” Macron told a news conference in Paris.
“Every day, we have to deal with issues such as anti-Semitism, racism, hate speech and online harassment. There is no international regulation on these subjects today, strictly speaking.”
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has proposed two sets of rules known as the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act targeting Amazon, Apple, Alphabet unit Google, and Facebook.
The Digital Services Act in particular would force the tech giants to do more to tackle illegal content on their platforms, with fines of up to 6% of global turnover for non-compliance.
MacDailyNews Take: Government cannot regulate “hate speech” without inevitably silencing what democracy requires: discourse and dissent.
The EU attempting to regulate “hate speech” is sheer folly.
It’s not the government, but the citizenry which can most effectively police “hateful” speech – via debate, dialogue, protest, humor, ridicule, silence, etc.
With no universally acceptable definition of “hate speech” possible, any legislation attempting to silence “hate speech” will inevitably harm freedom of speech.
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” – Justice William Brennan Jr.
“But, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” — Justice Thurgood Marshall
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” — Justice Robert H. Jackson
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” — Justice Louis Brandeis
“One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” — Justice John Harlan
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Because hate speech can’t be defined, such policies devolve into censoring speech someone doesn’t like. Anything speaking of violence already has a law against it. Outside of that, the “hate speech” is typically ascribed to anything that offends leftists.
Spot on.
Censorship moving towards Fascism are really what the ‘hate speech’ narrative represents. Besides…who is qualified to be the arbiter?
Ummm…. Hate speech laws already exist. Look your neighbour to the North.
Just because Canada is stupid in this regard, not understanding the value of free speech, doesn’t mean the EU has to become even more Orwellian, too.
As long as it applies to Both Sides…
But who would be the Judge??????
“One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” — Justice John Harlan
Lyrics can be Vulgar too… they are not mutually exclusive!
I like my bigots out there in the open. Along with my fascists,
Did they mean hate speech or speech that they hate ?
We are having a serious tussles between the oppressor and the oppressed…independence vs the collective.