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The online world should not be a wild west where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm people
I can't express how much I hate this. The online world SHOULD be a wild west, away from government reach, in my opinion.
Yes agreed. All the more so because it's a voluntary, pretend environment. There is a sibling post grasping to explain why the wild west was not as romantic as it seems and pretending the analogy holds for the internet. The post is silly, but at least the west was a real place that people had to live in. Acting like we need to monitor and regulate every corner of the internet is absurd, but then again, this is Australia isnt it.
No, it isn't voluntary or pretend. For most people today it's a natural extension of their lives, which they use daily, if not hourly. Where two decades ago you'd call a friend to talk, or send physical mail to communicate or physically go to a store or send mail to pay your taxes,today all of those are online. Most young people grow up with all of those things online and have never known anything else. For them, and those who grew up while things were changing, being offline is a option like going in exile in Siberia.
Heck, many people make their self worth based on Instagram or whatever, and many make their livelihoods online. The Internet is not what it was two decades ago, and pretending otherwise is foolish. It simply cannot remain the Wild West, like the real Wild West couldn't and didn't. Real life people are impacted, up to and including death (radicalisation and joining a terrorist group, or driven to suicide through harassmwnt, to name two "fun" ones)
> many people make their self worth based on Instagram or whatever
That’s unhealthy; why should promoting unhealthy social media adoption be our policy priority?
> Real life people are impacted, up to and including death (radicalisation and joining a terrorist group,
This occurred before the Internet, too. The answer is more speech, education, and enabling people — not censorship.
> or driven to suicide through harassmwnt, to name two "fun" ones)
Then we need to focus on individual resiliency - not building a hug-box.
> That’s unhealthy; why should promoting unhealthy social media adoption be our policy priority?
Nobody should promote it, people should fight against it, but until that changes, it should be taken into account.
> This occurred before the Internet, too. The answer is more speech, education, and enabling people — not censorship.
Before the Internet the potential reach was much more limited. Recruitment for ISIS online, for instance on Twitter, was highly successful where before they would have struggled to reach disillusioned youth in France or Indonesia for instance. More education, ideally secular, is needed, but how do you force that to happen in Indonesia for instance?
> Then we need to focus on individual resiliency - not building a hug-box.
How ? How do you make it so everyone is immune from, for instance, rape threats or personalised ( e.g. racial) harassment online ?
Just like real immunity, it requires exposure and a robust personal defense. The last thing you do for a healthy immune system is put a body in a sterile bubble.
There were mean, bad people before the internet too. We can deal with that fact, or fail attempting to get rid of them with censorship, while harming real information and exchanges in the process.
The mean, bad people weren't able to reach whoever wherever while retaining anonymity. That drastically alters the equation. A kid in Pakistan can harass a female journalist in Spain today without any trouble; a random racist from anywhere can hurl racial slurs at a French footballer playing in the UK. Few people would dare to say the bullshit they spew online face to face, with associated risks.
You only are "reached" by bad people online because you want to. You can choose to only allow contact from people you know.
What they want though is to be "reachable" by everyone without the drawback of people actually demonstrating a negative view, very much like removing dislikes from Youtube. They want to remove the dislikes from their online personas but done for everyone so it's less obvious they are hiding their critics. Because at the end of the day they need to be famous to get sponsorships or money whatever way they do it, hence they need to pretend to be "reachable".
"_That’s unhealthy; why should promoting unhealthy social media adoption be our policy priority?_"
The alternative is to destroy the tech industry as it exists. That's a fair chunk of the world economy. How do you plan on implementing that policy?
"_[Radicalisation and joining a terrorist group] occurred before the Internet, too. The answer is more speech, education, and enabling people — not censorship._"
I don't suppose you could provide an example or three? Of your "answer" working; I have plenty for the problem.
"_Then we need to focus on individual resiliency - not building a hug-box._"
1. Victim blaming.
2. Personal responsibility for one's actions.
>trolls
I hate their usage of 'troll' too. To me, 'troll' means a guy who argues about 0.9 bar not equaling 1 in a math forum. I have no idea what the hell these people mean when they say 'troll'.
The modern definition of troll seems to be more closely related to one of the personalities that got its start at a particular notorious imageboard, who constantly posts flamebait and thrives off of pushing the limits of how much they can upset others. I haven’t seen the original more innocuous definition used in a long time.
Posting flamebait to troll precedes 4chan by _many_ years. 4chan really isn't that old in the grand scheme of internet things, and isn't truly the originator of very much. Virtually any form of trolling you might find on 4chan was pioneered somewhere else many years before 4chan existed.
Oh, I consider flamebaiting trolling. But flamebaiting isn't cyberbullying or harassment or whatever these people think trolling means.
Trolling existed on Usenet long before 4chan.
https://gizmodo.com/the-first-internet-troll-1652485292
Ugh. I was an antisocial jerk trolling IRC in the early 90s. I would use shell accounts to ping flood servers and cause netsplits just so I could take control of a channel and change the topic to something dumb.
Right, even something awful predates 4chan.
Troll has come to mean "anyone who acts bad" to like 90% of the people who use it these days. It has no meaning anymore. "Trolling" just means "doing something I don't agree with".
But 0.9 bar isn't equal to 1. Oh! I see what you did there!
I think they are using it to mean something closer to "cyberbully", maybe.
> But 0.9 bar isn't equal to 1. Oh! I see what you did there!
This is a foundational problem in our anthropogenic decimal system of math (which we only use because of the evolutionary accident of a modal (n.b.: not average) human happening to have ten fingers); the whole issue doesn't even exist in the only correct representation of numbers, ternary (base-3).
For example, let's multiply 1 / 3 * 3:
In decimal `1.0 / 3.0 == 0.3 bar * 3 == 0.9 bar` and we've proven that 1 equals 0.9 bar, which is clearly nonsense and falsifies the whole concept of decimal representation of numbers.
In ternary, though, `1.0 / 10.0 == 0.1 * 10 == 1.0` -- see? no contradiction. Maths just work properly if you use the true numeric base.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I will not be taking any blasphemous questions from unbelievers about dividing and multiplying by two.
In a ternary system, wouldn't 1.222... equal 2?
Yes; the joke I was going for was that decimal one half would be written as 0.1 bar when converted to ternary. And then multiplying that value by 2 gives you 0.2 bar. Which is equal to ternary 1, in the same way that decimal 0.9 bar equals 1.
I find it really fascinating that different numeric bases all suffer from this same issue, but for different values. That the division by three which breaks decimal representation survives in ternary, but the division by two which is fine in decimal breaks ternary.
Of course, it seems to me that the real underlying problem is that we insist on writing these values out as an infinite series of fractional digits in the first place, instead of keeping the values in a precise fraction form. One third times three equals one; there’s no controversy there even in decimal. It’s only when someone insists on actually performing the division and representing that initial “one third” value as being a zero followed by an infinite number of fractional threes that the whole “omg 0.9 bar equals one??” paradox appears.
The last paragraph indicates the whole comment is in jest.
i am afraid that what they mean by troll is code for anyone who disagrees with their narrative
There should be both. There should be wild free parts for grownups who can't easily be traumatized, manipulated or tricked and also fenced gardens for those vulnerable (kids, grannies, religious etc whoever is easily trollable). Places where every non-techie goes nowadays (i.e. Facebook) should be censored and guarded strictly, the rest should be free and wild.
I think about this approach every two weeks, when I hear that somewhere in the world there's a new initiative to treat the internet like a kindergarten. Sure why not, but I would like to sign up for the wild west, the easily offended and gullible can live happily on the safe side, thanks.
Exactly. I used yo be a total Internet freedom proponent and that's what I want for myself but now as everybody (of whom the majority is mentally unprepared) is on Facebook I admit it makes no sense - Internet kindergartens have to be there for the people who need them (and most of these people just naturally go to places like Facebook and Instagram).
Yes, people tend to naturally self select into the parts of the internet that suit them.
There are many wild wests on the internet in the clearnet, yet most of the people I know that would want to be treated like children already exclusively are via fb, insta, etc.
Be that as it is, I see no reason for further controls. Heck, I doubt I would have had any real interest in learning about computers if my only options for internet fun were boring sites like the top socials. From experience, I would imagine most of the appeal of the net for people if it were to become some locked down nanny land would be in breaking out of it or in "misusing" the services. Or, more likely, people would just make new sites that would serve as the wild west. The infinite of the undeveloped is not containable.
The problem with this is that the mass of clueless kindergarten attendants are fed a steady diet of complete nonsense by curated and cultivated media outlets pushing very specific self serving narratives, which these obedient clueless drones in massive hordes then go out into the world and behave politically and economically exactly as those who treated them like the wind-up toy soldiers they actually are intended.
And the more defeaning the silence is when the idiotic ideas these people float about as plausible and desirable things, the more confident and less cautious that they are in support and pursuit of those things.
As somebody who spent the last week reading Facebook post after post from these people specifically in Australia not just defending but promoting concentration camps, military round ups and forced medication, I cannot emphasise enough caution in the idea that they should just be left alone in their harmless walled gardens with their amusing but inconsequential fantasies, not subject to the trauma of critical inquiry by third parties.
A while ago I would say you are tainted, but I've watched as my group of friends increasingly parroted every corporate media talking point, even when they flip-flopped constantly about a subject. They wouldn't see a conflict there and would deflect if I tried to point that out.
Now I keep to myself and watch the patterns, and I'am ok with that it is what it is, I love my friends and I don't think less of them because of that.
> defending but promoting concentration camps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti...
? I agree, that's a terrible piece of policy.
Your first two paragraphs are spot on, your last one demonstrates clearly that Facebook posts are not a reliable source of information.
There are no concentration camps, no military round ups, and no forced medication* in Australia.
* There is no vaccine mandate per se, but some types of businesses face fines for admitting non-vaccinated people onto the premises. You might call this a de facto mandate, others have certainly made that point.
> There are no concentration camps, no military round ups
Yes there are, not a troll, straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.
> and no forced medication* in Australia.
That part is true but I never said there were yet. I said clueless information walled gardens were constantly advocating for them with very little push back exactly because they're in walled gardens where that is the narrative they want pushed.
> There is no vaccine mandate per se, but some types of businesses face fines for admitting non-vaccinated people onto the premises. You might call this a de facto mandate, others have certainly made that point.
I do think it is to an extent. But there's definitely a gap between that and forcibly injecting people against their will, and that is what I was seeing many posts advocating for along with those military round ups and concentration camps that are already facts on the ground and are only being varnished with more PR friendly labels just like they were in every single deployment in history.
Well I'm an Australian citizen, so I am "the horse" as well, so let me share some first-hand information. The military was engaged on a short term support basis to assist with logistics, contract tracing, swabbing for tests, etc [0]. The oft-repeated claim that the military was deployed to forcibly contain people in quarantine is false. Australia often deploys its military internally to help mitigate natural disasters.
> forcibly injecting people against their will, and that is what I was seeing many posts advocating for
I believe you. Seeing the viciousness, tribalism, and callousness that other Australians have treated each other with during covid has been nothing short of disgusting.
One part of the Australian psyche that is not often discussed, is that in times of disaster, we are expected to engage in collectivism. Australia is besieged by more than its fair share of natural disasters (bushfires, floods, cyclones and droughts are all commonplace) and in those times, the community pulls together and supports one another. Covid was largely viewed through the same lens, where those who don't pull their weight are shunned. Given the amplification of toxicity that the internet can provide, you get posts like the ones you've seen. Not excusing it, just explaining it.
[0] -
https://www.defence.gov.au/operations/opcovid19-assist
I am also an Australian citizen although I have not lived there for many years now and after seeing what became of it during covid I intend to renounce it as soon as it is practical and I certainly never intend to return.
With regards to the cover story, you do understand that in many previous deployments of military roundups and concentration camps, they were not accompanied by announcements of "we are the evil empire now and are deploying our military against our own citizens to round them up and place them in concentration camps?". Because this is the exact defense I am hearing from aforementioned Facebook drones and I don't see how it's not predicated on the assumption that they're not military roundups and concentration camps until the government proudly and loudly announces them as such.
I could believe the Facebook drones in question are just not very bright, but I don't assume that at all for this particular forum and you seem a lot less naive than that.
Would the exact same protests from any of the other previous or extant regimes who have offered the same explanations for their actions have held water for you? And if not, why do they in this instance?
To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations.
What happened, in actuality, is that the Howard Springs mining camp was repurposed for quarantine. People have opted to go there instead of hotel quarantine. They are there for a total of 14 days, at which point they enter society at large. The army was providing transport to the location. People could have opted to stay at a hotel instead.
That's it.
At my core, I'm a civil libertarian. I am skeptical of government, and an anti-authoritarian. I am very, very much not a government apologist. But I am a strong believer in the importance of using facts as the basis of an honest, good faith discussion. My comments might just be a futile attempt to reduce the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect of this particular story.
> _To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations._
Using the term "concentration camp" used to refer to nazi death camps is euphemistic. It really misses the core horror of the holocaust by drawing attention away from the death/extermination aspect of the camps and instead naming the camps for concentration (e.g. internment.)
_"Not to be confused with concentration camp."_ -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp
The camps for Japanese-Americans during WW2 could be appropriately called concentration camps. Wikipedia redirects "concentration camp" to their page on internment, with this note: _"Not to be confused with [...] extermination camp."_
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp
I understand the imagery is extremely disturbing, and the worst nightmares of the idea of a concentration camp, which are actually extermination camps, is not what is being executed at the moment by the Australian government, but the fact is, it's a concentration camp all the same. The idea existed long before Nazi Germany and has been executed many places outside it since. Even _if_ it were absolutely true that every mitigating factor was at play here, the fact would still be that a precedent has now been set that the military can be used to round people up and put them in concentration camps.
As a civil libertarian myself, I think given the nature of governments, and in particular the Australian government, that precedent is something that should be horrifying enough to all observers, without extending it to the hyperbolic gesticulation of direct comparisons with the historical Nazi extermination camps, Soviet Gulags, Khmer Rouge killing fields, etc. And I believe that strongly enough that I'm planning to renounce my citizenship over it ASAP and would rather die than return. I cannot emphasize enough how disgusted I am by these events.
Further, the cover stories and reasons given just don't matter. Look at the reasons the Nazis gave for their concentration camps, it's not a long bow to draw; chief amongst them was disease control. Really think about the idiocy of offering alternative of even more expensive hotels to some of the poorest people in Australia as alternatives to said concentration camps, and then the cherry on top with the unique AU execution of the idea is that they actually have the nerve to bill the interns of said concentration camps anyway! 2.5k AUD per week for singles or 5k AUD for families.
I just can't believe this has actually happened, but when this entire covid event started, and the initial lockdowns dragged on and the AU government in general seemed intent on escalating degrees of authoritarianism, I drew a mental line in the sand and that line was military roundups and concentration camps, and no matter which way you slice it, the facts on the ground are that that's exactly where we are now. Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people in forums like this one, people like you in fact, and I do not intend at all to denigrate you by putting you in this group, but to draw attention to just how corrosive this kind of thing actually is to any kind of trust in a civil society, are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics.
Meanwhile, no other country on the entire planet is doing this. Even the most egregious examples of Austria aren't going to these lengths. I really can't understand why anybody is trying to defend it, and even less so why they're calling for it to be escalated. I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass into crazy world.
_> Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people … are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics._
It's a spectrum. More a question of temperament than intelligence:
Some people _desperately_ wish to told there's someone out there, looking out for them. A wise enlightened leader, preferably in a tie or a white lab coat.
"Just follow orders and everything will be alright."
Others prefer to assume responsibility and evaluate risk on a case-by-case basis. This end of the spectrum is more sparsely populated, because it requires personal struggle and sacrifice. So such people are always a minority, with obvious implications for democracy (AKA the rule of the _majority_).
Most people oscillate somewhere in between, swayed by pragmatic incentives and currents of social zeitgeist.
Well said. Living through this has been a real eye opener on the nature of humanity and civil society. The veil certainly has been lifted.
>I'm planning to renounce my citizenship over it ASAP and would rather die than return
This is just kind of hilarious. I have no other words.
OP please just stay off facebook
Facebook is where people were defending the behaviour, not where I heard about it. That was circling in more obscure smaller libertarian circles as an example of the escalating insanity of Australia.
The defense of the behaviour has indeed also caused me to stay off facebook, though.
There already is both... they're little worlds called websites. Maybe we'll see people migrate back towards smaller forums in the future.
Isn't Facebook already censored and guarded strictly? And you won't have wild free parts for grownups if you let the government legislate against "trolls" and "bigots" on the internet. Today they'll just force Facebook into removing "harmful" content but you are incredibly naive if you think they'll stop there.
They won't stop themselves. We have to invite them to police specific parts and stop them when they want to expand their control further. We generally like police to patrol the city and guard kindergartens etc but don't invite them to station in our bedrooms.
Isn't Facebook already censored and guarded strictly? Not sufficiently apparently. There still are a lot of weirdos, bullshitters and political trolls there AFAIK (but I admit I didn't really check - I just read about that a lot, incl. here on HN). I.e. fact-checking should be enforced, whoever is caught on repeated intentional lying with purpose to manipulate audience should be banned.
Yes I'm sure those non-techies would happily agree that they need to be censored but we do not.
In the model I propose they are not forced to be censored. As soon as they feel like stepping out of the kindergarten they can do just that.
There are definitely state-sponsored bots, bigots, and trolls on the internet.
States tend to want a monopoly on harming people.
And away from govporate-owned telecom cables and ISPs, right?
It's like coming to a MacDonalds and demanding that all the personnel gets their asses out for a walk while we have a party there with other 5y-olds.
Wildcatting and privateering are better analogies. The entire ecosystem is motivated more by wealth transfer than societal good.
>The online world SHOULD be a wild west, away from government reach, in my opinion.
I would agree to an extent, but I think there are a few examples where the government should step in. Child porn being the biggest.
All of the things where this legitimately applies are things that aren't really happening on the internet. They're happening in some specific place.
Are there pedophiles abusing children in your country? Then go arrest them. They won't be posting anything on the internet while they're in prison.
Are there pedophiles abusing children in some other country? That is that country's problem, not yours.
Nothing about the internet has to change in order to do this.
> That is that country's problem, not yours.
I agree in principle. However (China nonwithstanding) the internet knows no borders. Any one country not policing and arresting CP provides material for paedophiles in any other country.
If consuming online CP increases the likelihood that paedophiles will go on to abuse children (as I suspect it would) then child abuse in another country _is_ your problem.
> If consuming online CP increases the likelihood that paedophiles will go on to abuse children (as I suspect it would) then child abuse in another country _is_ your problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_por...
TLDR: All we have are correlational studies that conflict with each other, and correlational studies are inherently dogshit regardless, so that hasn't been established at all.
This seems identical to the argument that we need to do something about violent video games from other countries because they could cause someone to commit an act of violence in your country. It hasn't been established that this actually happens, but if someone does the bad thing in your country then they still go to prison. People are responsible for their own actions.
>Are there pedophiles abusing children in your country? Then go arrest them. They won't be posting anything on the internet while they're in prison.
And how do you stop the spread of the child porn already on the internet? Just leave it up since you can arrest people who make it or consume it?
There are other things the government should probably stop as well. C&C servers for malware. What is your solution when the people involved in malware are in another country and that country isn't taking care of the problem?
> And how do you stop the spread of the child porn already on the internet? Just leave it up since you can arrest people who make it or consume it?
Who is paying for bulletproof hosting of controversial materials when anyone producing or consuming it is in prison?
> C&C servers for malware. What is your solution when the people involved in malware are in another country and that country isn't taking care of the problem?
What's _your_ solution? Hacking the C&C servers in violation of the laws of whatever country they're in? That already is the "wild west" solution.
The alternative would be something like voluntary blocking by endpoints and firewalls, which nobody would have any reason not to use as long as the block list contains _only_ things like this which nobody actually wants, and therefore doesn't require any government mandates.
>Who is paying for bulletproof hosting of controversial materials when anyone producing or consuming it is in prison?
Who said anything about bullet proof hosting? You just need to host in a country who isn't going to do anything about it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there are some people producing and consuming it not in prison. You can try to arrest everyone involved but you will never get everybody.
That was my point. If the solution is to just arrest people doing it then how do you stop the spread by people who didn't get caught?
>What's your solution? Hacking the C&C servers in violation of the laws of whatever country they're in? That already is the "wild west" solution.
Perhaps. If the country the server is hosted in isn't dealing with it, then maybe that is the best solution. I don't know, but this does feel like a thing for the government to be involved in. If the government hacks a server to bring it down is it really different than a more official way?
>The alternative would be something like voluntary blocking by endpoints and firewalls, which nobody would have any reason not to use as long as the block list contains only things like this which nobody actually wants, and therefore doesn't require any government mandates.
Who is doing this voluntary blocking? The average person couldn't handle it so it would have to be ISPs or the government. Many people don't have choices in their ISP so they could be stuck with an ISP not doing blocking.
> Who said anything about bullet proof hosting? You just need to host in a country who isn't going to do anything about it.
Everybody hates child pornography. Random internet trolls will autonomously DDoS you into oblivion and no one will come to your defense when they do, because it's child pornography.
> If the solution is to just arrest people doing it then how do you stop the spread by people who didn't get caught?
If it's being hosted in another country, how is your government going to stop it? By violating another nation's sovereignty?
> I don't know, but this does feel like a thing for the government to be involved in. If the government hacks a server to bring it down is it really different than a more official way?
That seems like a bad precedent. You do it for child pornography, now somebody else wants to do it for blasphemy or lèse-majesté or "misinformation" as defined by a corrupt foreign government, and then what are you going to say? Those things are illegal in their country.
> Who is doing this voluntary blocking? The average person couldn't handle it so it would have to be ISPs or the government. Many people don't have choices in their ISP so they could be stuck with an ISP not doing blocking.
It doesn't need to be the ISP, it could be your own internet router. There is plenty of competition there.
>Everybody hates child pornography. Random internet trolls will autonomously DDoS you into oblivion and no one will come to your defense when they do, because it's child pornography.
This is assuming the servers are known. As far as I know child porn servers aren't sitting out in the public view.
>If it's being hosted in another country, how is your government going to stop it? By violating another nation's sovereignty?
I wouldn't advocate for a country to go send in the military to a data center to seize servers or anything like that.
I don't know if hacking a server hosting child porn is actually violating a country's sovereignty.
>That seems like a bad precedent. You do it for child pornography, now somebody else wants to do it for blasphemy or lèse-majesté or "misinformation" as defined by a corrupt foreign government, and then what are you going to say? Those things are illegal in their country
Governments already do this so it isn't setting a precedent. It is just going further on what they will attack.
>It doesn't need to be the ISP, it could be your own internet router. There is plenty of competition there.
Routers are provided by the ISP for most people so it would still require the ISP to be involved.
The problem is not stopping the general public, but those who seek it out. If you do the blocking at the router level people would easily get around it.
> This is assuming the servers are known. As far as I know child porn servers aren't sitting out in the public view.
This is not a different problem for governments. Somebody has to go find them.
> I don't know if hacking a server hosting child porn is actually violating a country's sovereignty.
How would you feel about it if China or Russia or Iran did this to servers in the US?
> Governments already do this so it isn't setting a precedent. It is just going further on what they will attack.
Maybe precedent is the wrong word.
If you did this once decades ago and have since realized the error of your ways, it's valid to condemn someone else for doing a bad thing you used to do, because it was bad both times.
If you're actively still doing it, how are you going to argue that they shouldn't do it to you? Or are we just going with might makes right?
> Routers are provided by the ISP for most people so it would still require the ISP to be involved.
Your argument was that people don't have competition for ISPs. There is plenty of competition for routers. Anyone can go to Walmart or Best Buy and get one for $30.
> The problem is not stopping the general public, but those who seek it out.
This is not the problem for C&C servers. Nobody is purposely pwning their own devices and adding them to a botnet. Or if they are then they're security researchers and government interference in their research is not warranted.
Blocking works when the endpoints want it, and only then, because then they don't try to get around it. If the user actually wants to contact the thing, they'll just use a foreign VPN or any of a dozen other alternatives.
Laws for that sort of thing already exist, so that's obviously not what they're talking about when they say "unmask trolls". It's clear these Australian politicians are authoritarians who are upset about people insulting them online.
Of course laws already exist and the laws give the government the power to remove servers and other things like that. This means the current laws prevent the web from being the wild west.
Just to be clear, I am against this law, but trying to say we should have the wild west seems like a bad idea.
> _This means the current laws prevent the web from being the wild west._
If you take 'wild west' to be _pure_ anarchy free from _any_ law, then sure. But I don't think that's what is actually meant, nor does it describe the _real_ wild west, nor even the popular perception of the wild west. Pop-media depictions of the wild west are filled with sheriffs, bounty hunters, judges, etc. That wild west outlaws exist as a trope implies the existence of laws for these out_laws_ to violate. Utter absolute lawlessness is _not_ the implication of 'wild west'.
If there were governments (or pseudo governments) then what does wild west mean in this case? The OP was saying the internet should be the wild west without government interference. My understanding was government free area.
You approach a problem with your emotions and that has never given any result.
The online world has been, from its inception, a foundation for creativity, knowledge, entertainment, communication, and so much more. When a malicious party recognizes the power of the online world and starts to abuse it for their own gain, if you TRULY support all that is the online world, you shouldn't allow such parties to exist.
In other words, it's pathologically stupid to allow freedom of expression to be exploited against freedom of expression.
If you're not flexible, you break at the slightest bent.
Nonsense. The wild west led to gunslingers and bounty hunters and true progress was achieved after it was reined in.
Just because you are able to insulate yourself from all the shit that goes on ‘out there’ does not mean everyone else has to be okay with it. Some of that online trolling and hating has affected a lot of people more personally than others. Think about them too.
I actually like this. The companies can be forced and the users can learn to shield themselves. I obviously see the threat that perhaps my own currently benign opinions can be civilly and criminally sanctionable in the future. But I think this isn't an absurd predictable use of state power: regulate the intermediaries. Let individuals know there are consequences. Maybe people don't actually believe the things they are saying, reduce it.
What could possibly be the consequence for lying?
Believe it or not, jail.
Yes, but what charges could someone possibly levy against someone else for lying? Unless they're breaking some other law which already exists on the books, making this mostly a redundant constraint.
this might have been a popular idea among some libertarian hackers in the 90s but I'm not sure how many people you're going to get on board with the notion that the internet should be ungovernable and out of the reach of law enforcement.
I'm in favor of having robust freedoms both online and offline don't get me wrong but I don't see the internet as some sort of mystical realm and I don't want anarchy on the internet for the same reason I don't want it in the neighborhood I live. The 'online world' is not some space any more that is solely a refuge for people who felt maligned in the 'normal' world, it's part of the fabric of everyday life and that means it can't be a playground without rules.
I'd settle for free speech and no censorship .
On the internet there is no separation between private and public. There will be no laws telling you not to be a troll in your bedroom. The question is if people are allowed to be private in the place where they spend increasingly more of their time, the internet
You say that, but are you then against the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?
A regulation set out to protect the information rights of the individual.
The Wild West lasted 30 years. Significant amounts of land damage, violence against women and indigenous people happened. Cowboys were overwhelmingly Spanish speaking. It wasn't America's finest libertarian dream, cattle barons exploited everyone, consumers included. Chicago was a nightmare of meat packing. Mass immigration was in full swing.
No part of the world is away from government reach, you espouse a fantasy.
Your answer not true. In fact, the "Wild West" is still in fact a reality.
1. Land damage as in the largest public lands system in the world?
2. Violence against women who were among the first in the world given the right to vote?
3. Violence against people that were plenty violent?
4. Cowboys spoke many languages. Your point is what?
5. Chicago is the "Wild West", huh?
6. Immigration is good, depending.
Leave the internet out of your politics, please.
Why do you think the cows existed? Chicago is where the wild west cows wound up. Cowboys existed because barons of beef on the hoof wanted cheap Mexican (Spanish speaking) vaccero labour to move cattle, trampling down sheep and other farming fences, to exploit prairie grasses without paying land damage costs, to ship meat to Chicago to feed the exploding eastern state population.
Cowboy culture and wild West was exploitative bullshit, both literally and figuratively. What was happening was a fight between expansion for cows, other farming, and the sweep westward. It lasted 30 years before it was legalised into normality. Dodge city cowboys are a myth based on thin facts and nothing about the wild west is good regarding internet governance
> _Dodge city cowboys are a myth based on thin facts and nothing about the wild west is good regarding internet governance _
Nothing about the _real_ wild west as you describe it has anything to do with the internet. Where are the analogous internet cows or commercial exploitation of internet prairies, or sweeps westward? This is all nonsensical. The literal reality of the wild west has nothing to do with regulating "trolls" (criticism of politicians) online.
> Leave the internet out of your politics, please.
Your comment would have a lot more value without this cheap attack. The article and all the comments are about the politics of the internet. OP has the right to express their opinion, however wrong they might feel to you.
The wild west is a really bad metaphor for internet governance at any time. Firstly by sheer weight of numbers it's China and India who carry the users. Secondly it never had a deregulated state, ever, since before ARPAnet telecommunications were fully regulated state or post monopolised regulated by the outcomes of the RBOC lawsuits.
This "we need more wild west" is a fantasy. It ignores pretty much all current governance and community consensus processes everywhere. Not even John Perry Barlow believed his own quote applied to all things all the time.
The IETF is not the wild west. IANA is not the wild west. BGP speaking is not the wild west.
If no part of the world is away from government reach we still have a lot of work to do. "The Net Interprets Censorship As Damage and Routes Around It".
How does this enhance the argument regarding Australian anti trolling laws? Read one way it says "they'll fail" so why care...
Oh, I always interpreted as as a guiding principle for system design.
I read a lot of these wacko things coming out of Australia, but is any of it really enforced? Wasn't there a thing about banning encryption?
I remember when Malcolm Turnbull made the quote: “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,”
[1]
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathema...
Australia is a highly compliant/obedient society. It’s also highly litigious, lots of fines for anything and anything. It’s the defamation capital of the world.
Yes this will be enforced, it’ll be enforced selectively against critics of the current government. There is a video of the announcement with the current PM grinning and smirking in the background like a little kid when this is discussed
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/r3qh1m/the_way_s...
.
The current pm is coming under a lot of criticism recently as well as other mp’s. There’s an election coming up in May so this is convenient timing. Recently a popular YouTube comedian / journalist had the anti terror police let loose on him for criticising mp’s with accusations of corruption.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/tamed-estate-arrest-of-friend...
Australia has no bill of rights for its citizens and the current government seem extremely self serving for personal gain.
The new Amazon documentary Burning about the 2019 bushfires goes on bit of an attack of the current Australian PM.
Australia is still very much the “Lucky country”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country
Yeah that's a pretty fair assessment of the state of play here in Oz, and I'll add the point that most Australians have no idea this stuff is occurring.
The media landscape in Australia is extremely consolidated, to the degree that there are only a few major media players, and they are almost completely aligned in their agenda and messaging.
There is an incestuous relationship between the media and the politicians - the hyperconsolidated media acts as kingmaker, which gives an incentive for the government to coddle them. In return for favourable legislation, the media runs stories (or doesn't run them) to the benefit of their favoured political party. That party is almost always the conservative LNP, if you're ever wondering why Australia has such a prominent right-wing authoritarian streak, know that the Murdoch media has a dominant print market share, a monopoly on cable TV, and a large majority of the free to air TV market is ideologically aligned.
I would bet real money that any random HNer who has clicked on the recent posts regarding Australia's incursions into digital freedom has heard more about it than the average Aussie.
> incestuous relationship between the media and the politicians
the name Conrad Black comes to mind for some reason ...
> There is an incestuous relationship between the media and the politicians
this is indeed correct, but then you say
>hat party is almost always the conservative LNP, if you're ever wondering why Australia has such a prominent right-wing authoritarian streak, know that the Murdoch media has a dominant print market share, a monopoly on cable TV, and a large majority of the free to air TV market is ideologically aligned.
The fact that people make statements and believe things like this should make it clear just exactly who is in control of the Australian media, and what the propaganda is pushing.
First let's look at the facts. Murdoch owns 25% of the Australian print media and 1 cable news network. They own zero, (yes zero) of the 5 major TV networks. Yes that is all! The remaining 75% of the Australian print, and almost all the free to air channels are controlled by mostly ideologically left wing groups and they try desperately to push their views on the Australian people, yet the Australian people refuse to listen, and continue buying Murdoch papers, then switching off the free to air channels, and paying their own money to watch the Murdoch owned sky news.
It is a good thing too because the only news media putting any effort into resisting the Authoritarian lockdowns and other authoritarian measures being taken by the state governments are the Murdoch owned media (yes you wouldn't know all the authoritarian measures have been taken by the left wing state governments and not the right wing federal government from listening to the media would you, why is that?).
The Authoritarian streak is being pushed almost entirely by the left wing media, and I have personally seen people who consume this media become radicalized by it. They push, non stop, the idea that freedom of speech is bad, that working class people are stupid and don't know what is good for them, and the country needs people from the professional classes to take control (and therefore systems like China's would be better). They have been pushing for and, in the left wing controlled Melbourne succeed in, instigating the harshest lockdowns in the entire world. Melbourne is Australia's version of San Francisco - that is where the video of the police beating up and pepper spraying the 70 year old lady came from. They also try to inflame a lot of racial hatred and get people to fight among themselves.
Thankfully, Australian is a very down to earth, working class culture, and most people don't fall for it. Despite the endless propaganda being pushed on most channels and media, they switch it off. Unfortunately, as the parent commenter does correctly point out, it comes with a downside, that people don't really know what is going on. They don't care because life is good. Most people don't watch news at all and that is how the government can get away with a lot of the things it does.
Wow, there's a lot of incorrect info in that comment! Which free to air TV channels are left leaning? Wasn't it the federal government that introduced the recent draconian surveillance laws? Wasn't it Peter Dutton who famously inflamed racial tension in Melbourne by blaming "African gang violence"? I think you may have consumed a little too much of that Murdoch press!
It's also the current right wing politicians who are currently trying to stifle free speech by suing everyone for defamation. But I guess sending an anti terror squad to a comedians house isn't 'authoritarian' enough for the grand parents post.
ABS and SBS are far, far left wing. Channel 7,9,and 10 are centrist, but 7 leans left, 9 leans right. 10 is interesting because it currently has one of the most left wing shows on TV (The Project) but also used to have one of the most right-wing shows (The Bolt Report), so I guess I'll put them in the center to be fair.
Channel 7 regularly act as the platform for Pauline Hanson to spit her dross. That ain't left leaning by a long shot. Also, despite your perception, the ABC have to undertake annual audits for political bias. This is part of being a state funded broadcaster. I suggest that you read those reports.
EDIT: Channel 9 is chaired by Peter Costello. Channel 7 is chaired by Kerry Stokes. The ABC is chaired by Ita Buttrose. All three of these people have _much_ closer ties to the political right than the political left.
A pretty good summary of the current state of affairs can be seen at
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/t...
EDIT 2: More links:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/abc-news-australia/
That's extremely telling to consider The Project as 'left wing'. Basically everybody on the left hates The Project, it's definitely not 'left wing' unless you are looking from a _very_ right wing perspective.
SBS could reasonably be described as 'generally left wing' (no, not "far, far left", that's ridiculous). The ABC has shifted right massively lately from being centre left recently - personalities like David Speers and Leigh Sales basically becoming Government spruikers, Insiders and Q&A becoming infested with a lot of "false balance" (i.e. get a right-wing personality with no qualifications on to debate this PhD climate scientist), etc.
Thanks for taking the time to provide an alternate view.
I think left-wing hatred is such a potent force that comments sections get dominated by these people and we get a very skewed view of things.
As you mentioned, thankfully the mainstream has too much commonsense and doesnt take it seriously.
Australia _litigious_? No it's not.
Yes, it absolutely is.
"Unenforcable" laws like this are just a way for bad actors to selectively enforce laws against those they don't like.
They came down hard on a defamatory tweet this week
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-24/peter-dutton-wins-def...
This isn't the government though. Australia has strict laws where if you tell lies about someone they can sue you for damages. This is an individual politician, using the same avenues that any other member of the public can also use, to sue someone for defaming him.
It doesn't necessarily have to be lies, although truth is a possible defense - but there are issues around parliamentary privilege when politicians sue where it might not be possible for the defendant to mount a truth defence even if it's on the public record that they said something! Our defamation laws are really screwed up - basically, you need to prove that you didn't defame somebody instead of the burden of proof being on the plaintiff to prove it, and you need to have massively deep pockets to sue for defamation (you will likely part with hundreds of thousands of dollars, unless you can get costs awarded - not really anything most 'any other member of the public' can actually do), and you need the same kind of cash to successfully fight somebody suing for defamation against you. It's basically a war of who can pay for the best lawyers.
The internet comedian Friendlyjordies managed to settle very favourabliy because he managed to crowdfund literally a million dollars to fight when John Barilaio sued him. Otherwise that wouldn't have been possible for him to even think about fighting it.
Which would fine if they weren't also proposing that the public pay the legal bill for MPs to launch such action against the public.
If they're defending, sure, they need to be covered but if they want to go after the public they can pay for it themselves.
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/peter-dutton-sugge...
A YouTuber lost a truth defense because things a politician said in parliament are inadmissible in court so it's not reasonable to claim they are "using the same avenues that any other member of the public can also use". That politician could given up parliamentary privilege and made it a level playing field but he did not.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-05/john-barilaro-settles...
The courts are a part of the government, the judicial branch to be precise. It also wasn't a lie, Peter Dutton is a rape apologist. The Australia government punishing someone for saying something truthful about one of their ministers doesn't make it any less true.
Scott Morrison made a big deal of his intention to use the recent meetings between world leaders to build an international consensus around this issue.
Instead, he was humiliated when the president of France called him out as a liar over his mishandling of submarine contracts, and no one wanted to talk to him.
A very partisan take I think.
https://www.crikey.com.au/dossier-of-lies-and-falsehoods/
Nope, wholly accurate
For people who arent familiar with Oz politics I'II fill in the blanks a bit to compensate for the selective partisan filter here.
France was pissed of with Australia because they took a perfectly legal exit on a contract for submarines. This kind of staged contract is normal for large military tenders as once committed you are locked into an effective monopoly. So with each stage there is typically an exit path to keep pressure on the vendor who would otherwise have no incentive to perform.
After many delays and cost overruns, Australia took a completely legal exit on the French contract and took up another commitment for UK/US nuclear submarine tech. This was a vastly superior option and pretty much everyone agreed it was the right decision.
This is particularly the case, as the strategic situation in the Pacific is radically different to when the French sub contract was taken. As you would expect Australia played its cards close to its chest before informing the French they wanted an exit.
This is perfectly normal approach as anyone would do in a similar situation whether they were buying a car or a Boeing 747, let alone something with massive geo-political consequences like a defence contract.
Scott Morrison was accused of being a liar by the French who pretended they weren't aware the sub contract was at risk.
A text message was leaked that showed, in fact, the French were aware and Macron had lied.
A lot of people have been suggesting Macron was simply playing up to nationalist sentiment in an election year (same for the current French/UK fishing disputes etc).
Scott Morrison was also called a liar by the previous unsuccessful Australian Prime minister, Malcom Turnbull, who he replaced. Malcolm is well-known as someone with an axe to grind and a massive chip on his shoulder.
Malcolm himself has been called out for lying in his recent autobiography.
He was also recently called a liar by Ben Fordham, a journalist, details are here:-
https://www.2gb.com/hes-lying-ben-fordham-reveals-untold-sto...
So make of that what you will, but as always, the situation is a bit more complex than the partisan one-liners you read in the comments section.
Australian exports to the European union will suffer. There will be no nuclear subs here for decades, if ever. We'll be given second hand dross before the new subs arrives., and it bears mentioning the French subs were nuclear, and retrofitted with diesel to meet this contract.
The French subs need recharging. The US and UK offer are single charge for life.
It's a five eyes con. We pissed off the Japanese to take the French deal and pissed off the French to take the US/British deal. This is childishly stupid politics about arms for 2030 or 2040.
Morrison won't be in power in two terms more. Normally Australian defence is bilateral. The libs under Abbot tore bilateralism apart.
I trust Macron less than I trust Merkel but more than I trust Johnson or Morrison.
France is muscling up. Look how they told the UK to fuck off over the cross channel policing meeting. Macron isn't taking any shit from anyone, he's occupying the power vacuum Merkel is leaving behind.
Stupid politics for an economically weak nation like Oz. We will gain little for this posture. Strike an own goal time. (Just like the TPP is better without Yankee distortions, and I have little doubt Morrison will usher the Americans back in, to our trade detriment. Every us au trade deal has materially disadvantaged Australian businesses)
Great, thanks for sharing your opinion.
Because thats all it is.
like everyone else's yours included.
yep that's right.
The problem wasn't that the deal was cancelled, it was that the French were blindsided and didn't know. The text message leaked by Morrison (unprecedented bullshit!), shows that the French knew of issues (which they did of course, nobody is denying this), but the day before the public announcement of Aukus were asking for news, meaning _they didn't know the contract will be cancelled_. Morrison is so stupid he leaked a text message litteraly proving he lied.
Furthermore, nobody can really say if the choice was better. Theyd be comparing a programme in advanced design stage vs a purely theoretical "we'll buy subs based on US or UK design with US nuclear reactors". There's no design, no costs. If in 2050 Australia still has no nuclear subs which isn't impossible (they hve no nuclear infrastructure), it would have been the wrong choice.
It astonishes me the level of expertise of some people in the comments section.
Complex defence contract negotiations, submarine technology, geo-strategic planning.
Its really quite impressive.
I think few in Australia would disagree that Scott Morrison is a liar. That was the first thing I really noticed about him even before he was PM, it's nice that the French contract is finally bringing it to the fore.
It's insane. The Crikey guys came to the same conclusion I had - he doesn't just use big, strategic lies for political advantage - he lies about the small things when it's not even necessary, and they come back to bite him.
I actually, seriously and honestly think he might have an actual personality disorder (like NPD or something). It's not normal, even for a politician...
No he's just on the right and youre on the left.
And you dont like anyone like that.
And Crikey is hardly a reputable source.
Because of mandatory voting, Australia is one of the very few countries in the world where the government has real democratic legitimacy. A very large percentage of the population votes, voting is easy, the voting systems are preferential and reasonably fair, and so a majority of the voting population actually did vote for the government of the day.
The Australian system is certainly not without its issues, but it is far better than most other countries in the world, especially the madness of the US federal FPP system.
I suspect that this is why Australians are seen to be complaint/obedient. It’s because we know that half of us explicitly voted for this government - either directly or indirectly through preferences - and if it fucks up too much they will change their minds and this mob will be gone (and good riddance if you ask me).
I believe that this is also why Australian politics is quite centrist relative to many other counties.
But both of the two main parties do relatively the same shit. It’s like choosing between Pump water or Mount Franklin… either way you get a raw deal.
I don’t really agree. Unless one is actively seeking a diverse media diet, what we see of both parties is heavily influenced by media concentration. As a country, we largely see what Murdoch’s media wants us to see, so any kind of progressive action or policy of the Labor party is going to be painted in a negative light for most people.
This was a huge problem for Julia Gillard in particular. Despite being one of the most effective prime ministers in Australian history[0] you didn’t hear about this from the MSM at the time. Supposedly serious commentators complained in the Murdoch press about her _choice of clothing_ [1].
With powerful filters like this, blurring the achievements and policies of even the very leader of the government of the day, it’s always going to be difficult to distinguish between the parties.
[0]
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jun/28/austra...
[1]
https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2021/09/09/australias-f...
While there are upsides to compulsory voting this is one of its downsides IMO. Because you can't "refrain to vote" the parties know all they have to be is slightly better than the alternative and they will get your vote. In some ways it entrenches the two-party preferred system and means they only have to differentiate on minor issues. In the end they don't have to be good to get your vote, they just have to be slightly better than the next party in line.
If you are not satisfied with either party you still need to vote. Even if you vote for a minor party you know many who aren't as engaged in politics will vote for one of the two majors anyway on relative, not absolute basis limiting the power of your "politically engaged" vote.
That's my impression of Australia's politics. There's no perfect system.
I don’t really agree. All parties monitor the flow of preferences very carefully and this is an important means for the electorate to signal the need for change. Plus, not voting is not the same as voting differently.
We are also witnessing a significant shift to minor and independent parties, as voters are apparently becoming less affiliated with specific parties over time. Most people I know consider their vote carefully, even if they don’t vote the way I do.
In any case, while the Australian system is far from perfect, it does lend greater legitimacy to the incumbent government, and has the effect that if the government you personally voted for does something you don’t like, next time you’re more likely to vote differently.
The state of Australian politics is a complete and utter shambles. Every single Australian should be thoroughly embarrassed by this. In my opinion mandatory voting is up there among the very worst, most destructive forces any democracy has undergone.
The politics of half the Anglosphere is pretty much a dumpster fire relative to Australia, so it’s hard to accept your position.
In terms of destructive forces in Australian politics, I think the lack of media diversity is far and away the greatest threat to our country - far ahead of requiring the governed to have a say in who governs them.
Can you please expand on how mandatory voting has lead to harm? I'm genuinely not able to imagine how you can lay the blame for the current state of Australian politics on it
Can you really say electoral participation confers 'real democratic legitimacy' when it's coerced?
Australians need an internet freedom party. While the "Keep Sydney Open Party" did not win any seats, it got so close that lockout laws (can't go into a bar or club after 1:30am, can't buy shots after midnight) finally got repealled.
The problem with "single issue" parties is there's a whole range of other matters we also need representation on and they abstain from voting on those (or just vote with the government) so you lose your local representation.
An example from the bullet train party:
_What are your other policies?
− Getting a Bullet Train for Canberra is our policy
− We aren’t trying to form government and run the whole show_
https://the-riotact.com/meet-the-bullet-trainers/84110
Think you’re massively overplaying KSOs influence on the changes in the lockout laws. If anything KSO distracted younger voters away from the Greens, and to a point Labour, who are far more useful parties for that demographic.
Any party with "freedom" in it will just turn into yet another libertarian cess pool. The reason so much stupid policy comes out of Australia is because we keep voting for conservative politicians because our entire economy is based on real estate and mining. It's just a backwater parochial shithole.
> yet another libertarian cess pool
> The reason so much stupid policy comes out of Australia
Here we go, the real reason.
This is not even the most authoritarian online bill to be proposed in Australia and be supported by both parties. No, that dubious distinction goes to the Hacking Bill — where, in case you are wondering — the Hacking will be done by the government! (With warrants from a lower court of course)
https://www.accessnow.org/surveillance-state-incoming-with-a...
Note how this specifies 'defamation', and comes straight after politicians in our current ruling party attempted to sue activists reporting on their corruption for it. This very likely has the ulterior motive of demasking people who spread information about corruption so they can be sued or jailed.
Update overnight from assistant minister to the attorney-general:
When defamation ruins reputations and destroys livelihoods, there needs to be an avenue to peel back the mask of the username, get to the identity of the person who’s engaging in appalling and trolling behaviour that breaches our laws if they were don’t face to face, so that person who has been defamed or have their reputations destroyed or faced criminal acts online can get accountability for that, can take them to court, can sue if necessary or can deal with them through the police.
The Guardian's commentary here:
There was this bit, which states what the legislation is actually about. The government is focussing on children and women in its sell of the legislation – but it’s actually all about defamation actions. Which, given the expense, is not an option for the vast majority of people.
People are sociable animals, if they have an opinion and don't see other people with the same, _some_ people will think it's a bad/wrong opinion and go with whatever the acceptable/popular opinion is.
Controlling online discourse is thought control and artificial consensus creating. See reddit for example.
The new legislation will introduce a complaints mechanism, so that if somebody thinks they are being defamed, bullied or attacked on social media, they will be able to require the platform to take the material down.
This is absolutely ridiculous on so many levels. The "standard" here is that if someone _thinks_ they are being defamed, bullied or attacked?! What that simply means that in practice anyone can get anything they don't like erased off of the internet. This law isn't just an attack on free speech, its the complete obliteration of free speech and open discourse all together.
Australian Government has gone bat shit crazy. The population should become ungovernable.
Sorry again world.
Everyone should also consider that our current PM in Australia is going into a terminal death spiral with his government. I wouldn't expect this to get out through parliament too quick if at all.
It's best seen through a lens of a lazy right wing government that's been out led by every state leader for the last two years. They are just looking for a good headline.
If it does get legislated, then I REALLY hope that social media companies just abandon Australia and lock us out. It may just be the best unintended consequence ever.
Are there provisions to prevent it being used to locate government critics?
Not only are there not provisions to prevent that, it's the implicit purpose of the law!
On the contrary:
"If it’s in the public interest, the Commonwealth Government can intervene in these cases on the side of the defamed person against the social media company.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government would proactively search for such cases to intervene in."
Taken from:
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/new-australian-la...
The Australian PM is massively down on the polls and following a Trump style collapse - and following a lot of his strategies too.
So there will be lots of political stuff coming out of Australian in the next 3-5 months (until an election is called).
This I'd simply take as an announcement with little chance of it getting through.
I'd be more impressed if Austalia went after the outrage barons. Murdock, Zuck, Dorsey, etc.
Targeting the bots (et al) and ignoring the barons is the failed war on drugs strategy redux. Toss drug users in jail while sucking up to cartel heads at celebrity charity fund raisers.
This is sort of off topic.
users who post defamatory comments
Wouldn't that be more like Twitter Mob. Does the word "Troll" means something different in Australia, or is it the headline written by Reuter using the word "Troll" differently to what I understand, or does "Troll" means something differently in the US given Reuter is an US media. Just what is "Trolls"?
Recently that word has been co-opted in our politics and media here in Australia to mean "people who criticise us online, often a bit rudely".
It's a really dire state of affairs. Hopefully this is just the death throes of a collapsing party in Government, there is an election in a few months and the party in charge is polling terribly (as they should be), and there's also a really strong independents movement to get more independent candidates who are pro-integrity and pro-climate action on the crossbench (which could make a _massive_ improvement in our politics, because while the opposition is a lot better in a lot of ways than the currently ruling party, in some areas they do the same crap).
If you read the article you'll see the "standard" used to remove speech is much, much broader than "defamatory comments".
>>The new legislation will introduce a complaints mechanism, so that if somebody thinks they are being defamed, bullied or attacked on social media, they will be able to require the platform to take the material down.
If one merely "thinks" they are being bullied or attacked, the law will require the platform to erase that material. Obviously this is completely subjective nonsense.
How enforcable will that be on platforms that are neither owned nor hosted in Australia?
That remains to be seen. It isn't remotely feasible as written, so it should be very interesting to see how it plays out.
Australia is leading the world for the number of new nonsensical laws passed monthly...
This could be the start of the next war, antiprivacy from Australia and antidoxing laws from elsewhere.
If this results in Europe annexing us, that will be a positive.
We're already in Eurovision, surely we're halfway there? Just sign a few forms and we're part of the EU?
....please?
I think reducing the harms that are done by trolls and various other bad actors on the internet is an important question for this era. But this might not be the main motivation behind these new proposals. One of the most concerning parts of this is that the rules around what trolling is and who gets to determine who is a troll have not been a prominent part of the discussion. There's important recent political context here that international readers may be missing, the current federal government campaigned at the last election with a promise to introduce a independent federal anti-corruption commission but in recent times has completely backflipped on this (
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-must-honour...
). Australia's mass media ownership is remarkably centralized with Murdoch owning an _extremely_ high percentage of the print media in the country (
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-14/fact-file-rupert-murd...
). This has led to a number of high profile people including two former prime ministers from both side of the political divide to speak out and say there's a major problem (
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/21/forme...
). This is also why we had that legislation that aimed to force social media to pay the print media for links, there's very clear evidence that the Murdoch media machine has very deep influence with the current system of Australian politics. This is relevant because for many years this same media organization was being exceedingly supportive of the Berijiklian government in NSW and was actively avoiding reporting on their corruption and generally reported in a persistent positively biased way on certain people in that government (and important to note that this positive reporting was done on people who's conduct wasn't ethical). As a result a lot of local populace just simply didn't know how bad things were, discussions on other non-Murdoch media and social media was the way in which many people became aware of just how bad the corruption really was in NSW. I mean sure you didn't have to dig that hard, or maybe even at all, because the deputy premier liked to boast about how he engaged in pork barrelling and other such conduct (for foreign readers, this is not satire or an exaggeration, he literally used to openly claim this as a badge of honor:
https://happymag.tv/barilaro-blue-mountains-bushfire-relief-...
). But the corruption was by Australian standard bad:
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/australia-nsw-premier-berejik...
, had it been other politicians involved it would have been in the newspapers frequently. Once news of this finally got out this eventually led to the leaders of the NSW State government being ousted. The persistent corruption and unethical behavior of a small group was brought into the open by an investigation of the NSW anti-corruption commission and the news was impossible to ignore at this point. This episode also involved the arrest without a warrant (with proper process not being followed) of a journalist who was investigating this corruption. There was also a defamation case brought up by the deputy premier against a Youtuber who was documenting the corruption of the deputy premier. After the scandal was well and truly out in the open the deputy premier resigned and settled the defamation case as a defense based on truth of claims looked fairly certain to prevail and the political backing he once had was gone (
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-05/john-barilaro-settles...
). Since this episode of NSW politics has unfolded the pushes to have a federal independent corruption commission have once again been prevented from moving forward. The main thing that concerns many people is that these defamation laws might in practice be used only to silence people talking about corruption and other political opponents much like what was seen very recently in 2021 in NSW. It is entirely possible that the stated aim of reducing harm to people in the community won't actually be a priority here at all. Hopefully an informed discussion can be had here and good laws can be created, there's most certainly issues with trolls and various bad faith actors online so hopefully good policy can be made in this space.
i am really starting to hate this timeline
No-one tell Scott Morrison that the bots and trolls are all promoting the cause of his side of politics :S
Own goal anyone?
Also his stupid religious discrimination act is worse (or at least as bad) as this stupid law.
This is like the stupid movement from conservatives in the US against "big tech" despite the fact that social media manipulation is a core part of their political strategy, and they're against government regulation.
Right wing politics has become so muddied with libertarianism that they can't do anything now without hypocrisy.
Everyone thinks the other side is bots and trolls. This is necessary to nominally believe in democracy but also think you should always get your way. Easy if you are always in the majority and the other side only looks like it has support because of "bots and trolls."
Look at the actual studies on what is falsely amplified on social media.
> [regulation of social media]
> muddied with libertarianism
Right.
Exactly
The way Australia is going, it seems clear they just want to be able to stifle all dissent.
Australia’s proximity to China is maybe affecting its western ideals. This is one of many things it’s done and doing recently to make it a less free country and this can only be a slippery slope which they are already sliding on.
Besides Australia and New Zealand, are there any particularly liberal countries in that corner of the world at all? The authoritarianism of the China aligned and/or left/communist Asian countries is well understood, but what of the rest?
South Korea spent much of the 20th century under military dictatorships, going from one military coup to another. Singapore's single-party system (with suspiciously fascist iconography[0]) is notorious for harsh authoritarianism. Japan today is a lot more liberal than it was a century ago, but their criminal conviction rate is too high to be believed and public support for the death penalty is around 80%. All three of these are nice countries in many respects, but I don't think any of them are particularly liberal by anglosphere standards.
[0]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_and_circle
Where America went, the west asprired to. Where China goes....
In Australia, although they pretend they are standing for something different than what China stands for, the reality is that they have started down the path to similar with some of the legislation the have put in the past 5-10 years.
What is it with Murdoch backed Conservative types in the west and their love of Authoritarianism?
imagine an internet without trolls, nobody would use it lol
So, only Australians can't troll Australians?