France Will Embed Regulators Inside Facebook

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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In what Reuters claims to be "the first move of its kind," the French government will embed a number of regulators inside Facebook and "examine how the social media giant combats hate speech online." Starting in January, the regulators will stay there for 6 months. An official said that "The idea is to make tests and then produce a report that we would intend to make public," and Macron said that he intends to roll out similar "smart regulation" to other tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon.

A source close to the French ministry for digital affairs indicated they could be seconded from the telecoms regulator and from the interior and justice ministries. Facebook said the selection was up to the French presidency. It remains unclear whether the group will have access to highly-sensitive material such as Facebook's algorithms or dedicated codes to remove hate speech from the platform. But the team could end up traveling to Facebook's European headquarters in Dublin and to Menlo Park, California, where the parent-company is based if necessary, the company said.
 
How ironic that FB is currently down. France already broke something?! What's that red button do, Mark?
 
Turns out facebook is a much better tool at promoting doublespeak than thought. Have you heard the latest? "Technomasculinity", you gotta hand it to these fuckers.
 
I wonder how many people understand Facebook, Google, et al WANT TO BE REGULATED, and will likely have an invisible hand in drafting those regulations. They are so huge, the costs of regulation will barely register a blip on their financial reports. However, it presents a huge barrier to smaller companies trying to set up competing services. A startup won't be able to staff an office with personnel who's job it is to comply with those regulations. Regulation creates a barrier to competition, which benefits the existing social media giants.
 
what is hate speech? its whatever you need it to be.

Something tells me they are after messages that would have you banned here as well.

Hate speech is more like enticing violence. E.g. "Let's kill $current_Boogieman" and such.
 
I would say it aligns with Facebook's agenda already so I doubt they will care.
 
If I was in control of Facebook I'd tell France to stuff it. Shut down Facebook support in France and let them stew in there own juices. Yes, I'm a curmudgeon.

I have the same philosophy on dealing with bullying governments. Whether it be Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Block all services to those countries. Create a support page that when an IP address from the affected country is detected, it gets routed to a page explaining the situation and a link to their government's site. "If you want access to Google, Facebook, Twitter and the services they provide, contact your government and convince them to undo act/bill/policy XYZ. Then we will restore service to your country."

Imagine what its like for those who rely heavily on Google Drive and now cannot access it.
 
Facebook's European headquarters in Dublin
Do they actually have anything there? I'm pretty sure the Ireland locations for major corporations are usually just an unoccupied desk with a stack of overflowing mail.
 
One of the worst indirect consequences of this, is that the West becomes entirely hypocritical when it tries to portray China as overly controlling when it comes to social media and the curtailing of speech the government dislikes.

No moral authority remaining at all
 
Hate speech is more like enticing violence. E.g. "Let's kill $current_Boogieman" and such.
Nah. Specific or credible/imminent threats can be classified as hate speech, but that's only a minor part of what gets banned under most hate speech codes that I've seen.
 
One of the worst indirect consequences of this, is that the West becomes entirely hypocritical when it tries to portray China as overly controlling when it comes to social media and the curtailing of speech the government dislikes.

No moral authority remaining at all

No Dawg! You see they are only censoring out the "bad stuff" Like the postman throwing away all the junk mail for you. It's a premiere service they are offering. How do you know they are only censoring out the bad stuff? Dude trust us,we're the government!
 
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