Apr 012019
 

Australia and New Zealand want to pass laws making it a crime punishable by years in prison for platforms like Facebook to not promptly pull down violent content that they don’t like. Assuming this goes through and they actually try to enforce it, what would the result be?

A: Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. would be forced to institute self-censoring so harsh that it would basically make them useless systems. Every Tweet would need to pass through some AI censor which would doubtless make a mess of the system or would be tricked by trolls who figure out how to beat the system… thus getting the head honchos of those companies in legal hot water.

Or…

B: The world of social media – nay, the entire internet -would somehow need to be Balkanized, with nations like Australia and new Zealand cut off from the civilized world in order to protect their fragile citizens from naughty words and dirty pictures and bad ideas. This is something that China is trying and Russia wants to do; the only way to really pull it off would be to actually cut off the cables and somehow prevent satellites from transmitting. I imagine this is possible, but what does it say about your country if they attempt this?

 

 

 Posted by at 5:15 pm