[pms]

It's a waste of resources, but please do it! The entire "European Union censors" narrative is a hoax [1], so the portal will achieve nothing, but you've got to do what you've got to do!

[1] First, the EU countries have much higher World Press Freedom Index than the US. Second, once you start reading how little there is of the alleged "censorship" in the EU, you realize it's a no-brainer aiming to protect people.

[jbstack]

As someone living in an EU state who has to regularly turn my VPN on and off to have full internet access, I can't agree with you that it's a "hoax". It's inconvenient enough for me that I'm looking into having a custom router that will switch between VPN destinations depending on what site I'm accessing.

Also "EU countries have higher press freedom than the US" is a strawman argument. We're not talking about press freedom. It's also an example of the fallacy of relative privation ("X isn't bad, because Y is worse than X"). It's like saying "It's a hoax that the US executes some prisoners, because Iran executes even more".

[pms]

I really hope they go ahead and create the portal. I mean it.

[flohofwoe]

> who has to regularly turn my VPN on and off to have full internet access,

Is this because the EU or your country has blocked access, or some news site from the US blocking access from the EU because they don't want to deal with GDPR?

[notrealyme123]

DCMA. United states censoring all around the world. So please host a VPN to get around that.

[878654Tom]

Most access blocking is through ISP DNS servers. Just set your DNS to an open one, no need for a VPN.

[nolok]

Which country ?

[RealityVoid]

What content are you missing? Off the top of my head, the type of content most likely to ve missing in Europe would be:

- geofenced media

- commercial sites intentionally removing eu access because of gdpr.

That's it. Those are the only cases where I could not access sites from tbe EU. At least the ones I encountered.

And do notice, both of them are not filtered by the EU or anything like this. They are enforced at the publishing website. Would you call this censorship? It kind of feels like a stretch. If not a deliberate contortion of truth.

[littlestymaar]

> EU state who has to regularly turn my VPN on and off to have full internet access

Because you really think this “portal” is going to let you access websites diffusing copyrighted content?

That's by far the most prevalent kind of blocking and I don't think the current admin is against that at all, they just want to to promote Nazi speech (which is barely blocked in the first place).

I wonder what they'll do about pedophile stuff though.

[Argonaut998]

Press freedom !== entirety of freedom of speech

European politicians are calling every day to censor social media. People are arrested regularly for social media posts.

Censorship is absolutely an issue in Europe and it’s only getting worse. I welcome such an attitude as this.

[danlitt]

The US's low press freedom index is precisely because people are being legally intimidated for wrongthink. It is not limited to the press, either. Mahmoud Khalil (the Palestinian activist detained by ICE on fake immigration charges for his political speech) is a famous example, but there are many.

The US's "commitment to free speech" is nowadays not very much more noble than Russia's principled stand against economic sanctions.

[21asdffdsa12]

The worst part is that its "outsourced" to private organizations and NGOs - and thus the state claims its "not state driven" censorship. They want social stability- but have no grasp of the concept of that stability being only a leaky abstraction for situational stability. You can not claim the world is peaceful and utopia is at hand, sitting in a ski chalet in the alps- while the whole mountain slowly comes down with that house on it. Reality cant be reasoned away, the rain will fall, no matter how much laws there are against it.

[kosinus]

There are so so many reasons to get arrested for social media posts that have nothing to do with censorship.

[mcv]

I think people getting arrested for social media posts is specifically a UK thing. That and Russia are the only European countries where I've heard of that happening.

In most European countries, you'd have to go pretty far to get in legal trouble for social media posts. It's not impossible, but that's also true in the US. There are and have always been limits to speech. Everywhere. Also in the US (and not just under Trump, although he'd definitely increasing government censorship).

* Threats

* Blackmail

* Libel/slander

These are all restricted by law, because they hurt, silence or coerce people. Hate speech does the exact same thing. It's ridiculous to call hate speech protected free speech, while threats and blackmail are not.

A far worse attack on free speech is banning or restricting criticism of the government. That is the primary reason for free speech protections, and yet that's the very thing that the current US government is attacking on an unprecedented scale. See for example recent attacks on Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert. That's something that would be unimaginable in many European countries.

[intended]

I think nations should add content moderation as part of mandatory volunteer duties.

The online commons and tasks are too complex and absurd, and we have many people who value speech, who would be the ideal people to take on these tasks. Putting their values into action so to speak.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, so the moment people volunteer for this, they will themselves see whether the claims of misinformation and disinformation are overblown, and then vote accordingly.

Obviously speech is a super important part of our online lives, and should be treated as such.

[boudin]

This portal will just contain propaganda to serve the fascist agenda of the current US government.

Not saying that things are perfect in Europe but the US talking about freedom and freedom of speech sounds like a joke.

[joenot443]

> [1] First, the EU countries have much higher World Press Freedom Index than the US

I don't think the placement of the US on the World Press Freedom Index is necessarily informative of whether there's censorship in the EU. I'd expect they both rank higher than North Korea, but that doesn't tell us much either.

[shitlord]

The organization that publishes the WPFI also considers online harassment a major threat to press freedom and scores accordingly.

[Gareth321]

I am European and I would like to challenge you a little. Both the US and Europe have major issues with press and freedom of expression. To give you some examples from the European side. Specifically, the UK:

* Police in England and Wales recorded 12,183 arrests in 2023 for online speech. This number is growing fast, but the government isn't releasing the data anymore. A few years ago this man retweeted a meme (pretty milquetoast by internet standards) and was arrested and asked if he would undergo re-education: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11066477/Veteran-ar...

* The UK records "non-crime hate incidents," whereby if someone complains about you because they don't like you, and if the officer also doesn't like you, they record your behaviour on your permanent record, even if you haven't committed any crime. This record is accessible and used by many industries such as teaching, firefighters, and police. If you have even one non-crime hate incident on your record, you can be excluded from a job.

* The UK Online Safety Act 2023 requires websites with content which "could" harm children to age verify all users. Porn sites. Social media. Etc. This required people sending in their government ID to be permanently retained by a multitude of private companies. There are already many examples of sensitive data being leaked and hacked. Now that kid are using VPNs to access porn sites, the current ruling government is seeking to ban VPNs ("for children", of course).

* UK law criminalises “threatening,” “abusive,” or “insulting” words. The legal test is (I am not making this up), whether someone took offense. This has led to outrageous examples such as this man who is facing a longer sentence for burning a Quran than the man who stabbed him (for burning said Quran): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xr12yx5l4o

* In 2023–2024, the government obtained a court injunction preventing publication of details relating to a major data breach involving Afghan relocation applicants (the ARAP scheme). Parts of the reporting were restricted for national security and safety reasons.

* The Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice system allows the government to advise editors not to publish information that could harm national security. They have broad authority here.

* The Official Secrets Act 1989 criminalizes unauthorized disclosure of classified government information. Journalists themselves can potentially be prosecuted. There is no formal public interest defense written into the Act.

* The Contempt of Court Act 1981 restricts what can be published once someone is arrested or charged if publication could prejudice a trial.

* Ofcom regulates broadcast media under impartiality rules. News broadcasters must follow “due impartiality” rules. They can have their licenses revoked if they're not following some rather vague rules.

If I'm honest, I'm very envious of the First Amendment. It's clear that we do not have the same right to free expression in Europe. No doubt there are supporters of this system who prefer a society in which one may not say offensive or unkind things. But I think there are too many examples where suppression of speech inevitably leads to authoritarianism.

[joe463369]

> This has led to outrageous examples such as this man who is facing a longer sentence for burning a Quran than the man who stabbed him (for burning said Quran): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xr12yx5l4o

This is a more than a bit misleading. The Quran-burner received a £240 fine, his assailant got 20 weeks suspended. Also, though he went for him with a knife, he wasn't successful - nobody was stabbed.

[phatfish]

Thanks for your input on UK society. FWIW, despite the coordinated attacks we are doing just fine. If you live your life through social media it might look like we are one step from North Korea though.

[blell]

Russia Today is blocked in the EU.

Yes I know you’ll tell me it’s for my own good. Spare me.

[anon291]

But don't worry their press freedom index is higher according to themselves!.

"We ranked ourselves and found we were number one!"

[ActionHank]

I personally love the idea that they think people are so desperate to logon to facebook or tik tok that they will use some government vpn to access advertising laden slop.

[dgxyz]

US talks about freedom and enforces other things...

The constitution is just words on paper.

[flawn]

So you're telling me, the landlord of a burning house starts to put out the (smaller) fire next door in a self-less act of virtue?

There is some other incentive here other than supposedly restoring "freedom of speech", don't you agree?

[dgxyz]

It's not a hoax, it's a straight up lie.

[dirasieb]

https://archive.ph/bdEqK

>>Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages

>The police are making more than 30 arrests a day over offensive posts on social media and other platforms.

>Thousands of people are being detained and questioned for sending messages that cause “annoyance”, “inconvenience” or “anxiety” to others via the internet, telephone or mail.

>Custody data obtained by The Times shows that officers are making about 12,000 arrests a year under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.