Social Media and the state

[Innula Zenovka]

I wasn't sure where to put this and, if the article's author is correct (as I think he is) we can look forward to battles between not only large social media companies and various governments' attempts to regulate them but also between Trump's administration and those governments as his backers like Musk and Zuckerberg ask him to intervene on his behalf.

We're already seeing something of the sort with Elon Musk's attacks on the British government, prompted, I think, by the realisation that British courts will come after not only people posting certain types of content on X but also, after the Online Safety Act comes into force at the end of March, after the platform itself, and he must have far greater concerns about the EU's Digital Services Act.

So I'm starting a new thread about the impending fight.

Anyway, a lengthy but very interesting and readable piece in the Financial Times:

The coming battle between social media and the state

 

[mikka]

I would have said 'let them fight' but it is a bit more serious than playground stuff.

 

[Noodles]

Yeah, its clear that the Social Media companies, most of which are US based, are going to drop in lockstep eith the Fascism agenda in the US. Can't lose power if you control the flow of everyone's media and turn them into paranoid zombies.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

One thing is for sure.... every conspiracy nut will feel vindicated by this. To them, censorship and denials proves their bullshit is correct! ....though not being censored or admissions would also make them feel proven correct.... They just have 100% confirmation bias.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

Ah, yes the British are trying to regulate the internet despite the fact that they left the EU because they did not want to be a member of the larger community. As somebody who doesn't live in Britain, I see zero reason why myself and and others should be forced to accommodate their laws.

As fascist as the American perspective of the lower 48 is becoming and as much as I'd like to call all of these companies evil (Zuckerberg and Papa Elon are as evil and as guilty as Duruv in my book), I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Google give russia the middle finger pretty much since the onset of the war.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Ah, yes the British are trying to regulate the internet despite the fact that they left the EU because they did not want to be a member of the larger community. As somebody who doesn't live in Britain, I see zero reason why myself and and others should be forced to accommodate their laws.

Yeah.... Balancing "free speech" versus the realities of how lies can be dangerous is very difficult and every Country has different ideas about the right balance. I don't have an easy answer, but I suspect we are headed towards big tech companies having to cater to every major country individually. ...which sounds very annoying to have to actually implement. Glad I don't work in social media.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

Yeah.... Balancing "free speech" versus the realities of how lies can be dangerous is very difficult and every Country has different ideas about the right balance. I don't have an easy answer, but I suspect we are headed towards big tech companies having to cater to every major country individually. ...which sounds very annoying to have to actually implement. Glad I don't work in social media.

In some instances the big tech companies actively fight disinformation for us, like Google vs russia, where Google refuses to cater to the reemergence of their soviet-era demands. This isn't often the case, though. And I am worried. It seems like the big companies and the big countries want to work together to take over the internet and brainwash us into buying stuff and voting for people for increasingly poor reasons. And it looks like a growing trend. I shouldn't be so hard on the British, though. The eventual American censorship demands are likely to be far worse.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Ah, yes the British are trying to regulate the internet despite the fact that they left the EU because they did not want to be a member of the larger community. As somebody who doesn't live in Britain, I see zero reason why myself and and others should be forced to accommodate their laws.

And no one is suggesting you should accommodate British laws unless you run a social media company with a substantial user base in the UK.

If you do, then you'll need to have various safeguarding mechanisms in place to prevent clearly unlawful content (links to CSAM, for example) being offered to UK users, to ensure your algorithms don't force undesirable content on vulnerable users in the UK (e.g. promoting Andrew Tate to young teenage boys, or groups promoting anorexia to young teenage girls), that you block misinformation from UK IP addresses, or that you promptly comply with requests from the UK regulators to remove it, and similarly that you take steps to prevent potentially unlawful content from reaching UK IP addresses (e.g. material inciting racial hatred). You also have to ensure that young children don't inadvertently encounter hard-core porn on your platform. This means acts of sexual violence being presented to 13-year-olds, not teenagers looking at nude photos:

Evidence on pornography's influence on harmful sexual behaviour among children | Children's Commissioner for England

This paper is the second in a series of reports exploring the impact of pornography on children. As Children’s Commissioner, it is my duty to protect

www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk

If you don't do this, your company faces stiff fines and, at worst, your company will find itself blocked by UK ISPs.

You can still make this available to people outside the UK, and people in the UK can still access it if they use a VPN, but you can't monetise UK users by offering it to them.

Since you say you are not a UK resident and neither are you, I imagine, the proprietor of a large social media company, there's no reason the Online Safety Act should affect you in the slightest.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

And no one is

This goes from something I can almost nod my head in agreement with in the first lines to fuel for a dumpster fire pretty quick. If the UK has a problem with certain types of content they can simply block those that refuse to comply with it, because not all companies are going to get on board necessarily, and not all citizens of other countries like the idea of the British deciding laws for them to follow, especially since the British have chosen to become isolationists. The idea of forced compliance and financial harassment from outside influences doesn't fly with most of us. Good luck bullying the entire populations of America and Scandinavia with this backward sort of you-will-do-this-or-else sort of thinking and shakey moral grandstanding.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This goes from something I can almost nod my head in agreement with in the first lines to fuel for a dumpster fire pretty quick. If the UK has a problem with certain types of content they can simply block those that refuse to comply with it, because not all companies are going to get on board necessarily, and not all citizens of other countries like the idea of the British deciding laws for them to follow, especially since the British have chosen to become isolationists. The idea of forced compliance and financial harassment from outside influences doesn't fly with most of us. Good luck bullying the entire populations of America and Scandinavia with this backward sort of you-will-do-this-or-else sort of thinking and shakey moral grandstanding.

I think you misunderstand.

OFCOM, the UK regulator, can order social media companies not to present various kinds of content to IP addresses in the UK. It can, if necessary, direct British ISPs to block content from particular social media companies altogether.

This has absolutely no effect on people in other countries, unless the social media company wants it to, any more than did the recent ban on X in Brazil affect anyone outside Brazil, or do the state of Texas' requirement that Pornhub and similar sites use age verification affects users in California or New York, let along the UK, Germany or Australia.

Who outside the UK do you say is affected by these laws and how? There's absolutely nothing to stop X or Meta or anyone else blocking UK users from seeing particular posts or type of content while allowing access to people with EU or US IP addresses.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I wasn't sure where to put this and, if the article's author is correct (as I think he is) we can look forward to battles between not only large social media companies and various governments' attempts to regulate them but also between Trump's administration and those governments as his backers like Musk and Zuckerberg ask him to intervene on his behalf.

Yes, though I would add news organizations such as the Washington Post and New York Times to the list as critical too, though I don't usually put them under the umbrella of social media.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

I think you misunderstand.

I understand you fine. We just disagree. It's okej.

 

[Noodles]

Yeah.... Balancing "free speech" versus the realities of how lies can be dangerous is very difficult and every Country has different ideas about the right balance. I don't have an easy answer, but I suspect we are headed towards big tech companies having to cater to every major country individually. ...which sounds very annoying to have to actually implement. Glad I don't work in social media.

The real tricky part is, how do you stop people getting around it.

Geofencing based on county IPs is easy. But do you block VPN access too?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The real tricky part is, how do you stop people getting around it.

Geofencing based on county IPs is easy. But do you block VPN access too?

The real tricky part is, how do you stop people getting around it.

Geofencing based on county IPs is easy. But do you block VPN access too?

The point isn't to prevent people from accessing it if they have a mind to. The point is to encourage social media companies either to remove certain types of content altogether (CSAM, for example or calls to burn down asylum seekers' hostels with the residents still inside) or to ensure that UK users will find it only if they use a VPN and go looking for it.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

The goal posts are moving pretty fast here . . .

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Guardian (@theguardian.com)

Tech giants told UK online safety laws ‘not up for negotiation’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/11/tech-giants-told-uk-online-safety-laws-not-up-for-negotiation?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

bsky.app

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The goal posts are moving pretty fast here . . .

No I have been following the debate about this legislation for some years now, and consequently have a pretty good handle on what it actually does rather than what some people think it does because of something they've read online.

Please, take a look at what the legislation is intended to prevent

Online Safety Act: explainer

www.gov.uk

and how it will be enforced

Important dates for Online Safety compliance

The Online Safety Act makes companies that operate a wide range of online services legally responsible for keeping people, especially children, safe online. If you provide an online service, there are actions you must take when duties come into force. This page explains the important milestones.

www.ofcom.org.uk

before you form firm conclusions about it.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

No

To put it nicely, I think you're making a pro-censorship argument and do not care to have British laws rammed down my throat that do not and should not ever in any way ever effect me or anybody else who doesn't live in Britain. The whole bit about protecting children reeks of fear mongering to me and doesn't hold any weight in my opinion. Free speech should be defended to the point of stupidity, not discarded world-wide or changed across the internet because a bunch of British people fucked up and raised their children in front of screens and now want somebody to scapegoat for their shitty parenting. In the future, this entire paragraph will likely be intercepted by an AI and properly translated for you into one word: crimethink.

 

[mikka]

To WeFloss : Jag tror att ni missar poängen. Ingenting att lagförslaget (om det antas) har någon effekt på dig, nätmedborgare.

 

[WeFlossDaily]

To WeFloss : Jag tror att ni missar poängen. Ingenting att lagförslaget (om det antas) har någon effekt på dig, nätmedborgare.

Jag förstår vad hon pratar om bra. Engelska är mitt första språk. Jag tycka inte det British synen på denna fråga. Det påminner mig om torskkrigen med Iceland. Det är något påträngande med det.