Uh-oh. When I hear that, I'm assuming that it will:
1. Going to be more tightly controlled
2. Going to be more strongly censored
3. Probably not going to be actually safer for people like me.
> This article is from The Technocrat
Is it now?... that does not bode well.
> If you use Google, Instagram, Wikipedia, or YouTube
Oh, you mean _that_ Internet. 4 sites which get a huge part of the traffic. Well, the first, second and fourth of these are quite unsafe: They surveil your activities for commercial manipulation purposes and also let the US (and maybe other) governments get some of that information.
As for Wikipedia, its editorial/censorship/moderation policies are variegated and complex, and while I'm not well-read about that, it does seem that they have at least some sort of a mainstream-politics bias.
> The DSA will require these companies to assess risks on their platforms, like the likelihood of illegal content
Lots of things can be illegal, especially in world states with more restrictive laws. That doesn't sound very safe.
> The DSA will require these companies to assess risks on their platforms, like ... election manipulation,
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. So this is formalizing the drumming-up-hysteria-about-Russia shenanigans we've seen in recent years. Once there were witches and gremlins and leprechauns who caused mischief, now it's those evil Russian hackers, which were sent by evil Putin, since why not, right? Just recently we read in the Twitter files how the twitter people were pressured by the US government to come up with supposed Russian meddling, and they were panicking since there wasn't any, so they had to cook something up.
> Perhaps most important, the DSA requires that companies significantly increase transparency
That's good, but about what?
> ... through reporting obligations for “terms of service”
Uh, that's not so interesting. Plus, they still get to have outrageous "terms of service". Those things shouldn't be enforceable anyway, it's not like you can seriously negotiate those terms.
> hate speech, misinformation, and violence.
And who decides which information is valid and which isn't? Also, what if governments engages in misinformation or violence, as they often do? I'm pretty sure it's going to be the "information we don't like", which is sometimes misinformation, and sometimes - not.
> You will be able to participate in content moderation decisions that companies make and formally contest them
Such platforms should probably just be recognized as semi-public so that commercial companies can't censor them without a court order.
, you're going to start noticing changes to content moderation, transparency, and safety features on those sites over the next six months.
> Who are you to decide what's misinformation anyway?
> That sounds like something misinformation terrorist would say.
...
> First, we'll censor any use related to social taboos. Then we'll censor anything we desire. If anyone complains, we'll accuse them of wanting to engage in and promote social taboos.
I'm all with you on government regulations. They're not a solution for any problem and there have be other ways to solve problems. Like giving everyone more opportunities to get good education without being in debt for the rest of your life.
At the same time as person who do hold damn russian passport and see propoganda working well for warmongering I wish everyone took this issue more seriously.
> Ah, now we're getting somewhere. So this is formalizing the drumming-up-hysteria-about-Russia shenanigans we've seen in recent years.
Like it or not, but Russia is a country with a lot of experience of maintaining bot networks and has almost unlimited budget to spread whatever misinformation they think useful for them. Fortunately corruption take its toll, but even with majority of budgets stolen they can still maintain hundreds of thousands fake social accounts. And Twitter is actually full of them.
With modern diffusion models and LLMs (and especially now when tech like ChatGPT exists) they can easily deploy such accounts in any region and make them use any language. Propoganda at scale never been easier.
And it doesn't cost much to run either. Few mobile phone farms, bunch of automation software, few VPN services and 500 students working part time can generate as much of online activity as population of a small country. Propoganda at scale never been cheaper.
PS: Unfortunately maintaining giant bot networks is much easier and cheaper than maintaining functional military.
or rather, Twitter agreed with your claim while under the previous ownership, even though internally they know that wasn't the case.
Now, does the state of Russia operate significant bot networks elsewhere? Possibly. But I have so far only heard about their existing from sources fed by the US government, or allied with it, rather than independent ones.
> Russia is a country
don't conflate the country with the state please.
> Russia... has almost unlimited budget to spread whatever misinformation they think useful for them.
Surely, you jest. Russia is extremely weak in propagandizing. And its budgets for spreading its views are nothing compared to even just the US as a state, and if you count private corporations, and the effect of Europe, then the imbalance is even more severe.
PS - None of this is to say that the Russian regime is admirable, peace-loving, international-law-abiding etc. (which it isn't.)
> And who decides which information is valid and which isn't? Also, what if governments engages in misinformation or violence, as they often do?
Yep. All the sociopaths who lied about nonexistent WMDs for 8 years have never been censored in ANY platform until today. In fact, most of them were apparently 'amplified' by pre-Musk Twitter.
Uh-oh. When I hear that, I'm assuming that it will:
1. Going to be more tightly controlled
2. Going to be more strongly censored
3. Probably not going to be actually safer for people like me.
> This article is from The Technocrat
Is it now?... that does not bode well.
> If you use Google, Instagram, Wikipedia, or YouTube
Oh, you mean _that_ Internet. 4 sites which get a huge part of the traffic. Well, the first, second and fourth of these are quite unsafe: They surveil your activities for commercial manipulation purposes and also let the US (and maybe other) governments get some of that information.
As for Wikipedia, its editorial/censorship/moderation policies are variegated and complex, and while I'm not well-read about that, it does seem that they have at least some sort of a mainstream-politics bias.
> The DSA will require these companies to assess risks on their platforms, like the likelihood of illegal content
Lots of things can be illegal, especially in world states with more restrictive laws. That doesn't sound very safe.
> The DSA will require these companies to assess risks on their platforms, like ... election manipulation,
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. So this is formalizing the drumming-up-hysteria-about-Russia shenanigans we've seen in recent years. Once there were witches and gremlins and leprechauns who caused mischief, now it's those evil Russian hackers, which were sent by evil Putin, since why not, right? Just recently we read in the Twitter files how the twitter people were pressured by the US government to come up with supposed Russian meddling, and they were panicking since there wasn't any, so they had to cook something up.
> Perhaps most important, the DSA requires that companies significantly increase transparency
That's good, but about what?
> ... through reporting obligations for “terms of service”
Uh, that's not so interesting. Plus, they still get to have outrageous "terms of service". Those things shouldn't be enforceable anyway, it's not like you can seriously negotiate those terms.
> hate speech, misinformation, and violence.
And who decides which information is valid and which isn't? Also, what if governments engages in misinformation or violence, as they often do? I'm pretty sure it's going to be the "information we don't like", which is sometimes misinformation, and sometimes - not.
> You will be able to participate in content moderation decisions that companies make and formally contest them
Such platforms should probably just be recognized as semi-public so that commercial companies can't censor them without a court order.
, you're going to start noticing changes to content moderation, transparency, and safety features on those sites over the next six months.