[rosmax_1337]

Regulation:

> it is necessary, consistent with the fundamental rights and freedoms recognised in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, in particular with the right to freedom of expression and information as recognised in Article 11 thereof, to introduce further restrictive measures to urgently suspend the broadcasting activities of such media outlets in the Union

What. Don't gaslight me with sentences like this in a official document from the EU. They are saying x and !x at the same time in one paragraph. Freedom of expression, and information?!

I suppose we should remember that it's not censorship if a private company does it. Private companies are free to conduct business with whoever they want, and the EU is not a government institution and as such is not capable of performing censorship. /s

[ceejayoz]

https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expre...

> The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

They're saying Article 11 already accounts for these scenarios. (I'd presume they learned from the US experience, where it was left to the courts to provide the "ok but there are obviously exceptions" relief valves to the Constitution.)

[nybble41]

> (I'd presume they learned from the US experience, where it was left to the courts to provide the "ok but there are obviously exceptions" relief valves to the Constitution.)

If so, they learned exactly the wrong lesson. It was wrong for the US courts to do that, but at least they were acting on their own and not claiming some justification in the text of the Constitution. It's far worse to have these exceptions undermining basic natural human rights written directly into the EU charter. The inclusion of Article 11 essentially makes the rest of the charter pointless—you have "guaranteed" legal rights, except when those in power decide that you don't, for what seem to them to be good reasons at the time. I doubt there is an example of any systematic infringement of rights throughout history which wasn't cast as being in support of "public safety" or "national security" or "protection of health or morals", or some variation or combination thereof.

[ceejayoz]

You're describing two systems with the same end result - rights, but with exceptions and limits. One of the systems is simply more honest about having such a setup, and it's not the American one.

[nybble41]

I'm saying both systems have the wrong end result—the EU one by design, and the American one due to defects in the courts.

Being wrong by design is worse than having some implementation issues.

[ceejayoz]

"Rights, with no wiggle room for edge cases or accounting for conflicts between rights" is "wrong by design". So's a giant, ever-expanding defined list of edge cases; I've run a popular web forum and that one leads to "ah but I didn't do exactly the thing listed in Article 73 section 48 part ZY" nonsense.

Our legal systems permit the resolution of conflicting rights and responsibilities. I'm glad that exists, but I'm also glad the Europeans took the American Constitution's failings and made it clearer that it should exist.

[nybble41]

"Rights with wiggle room" are not rights. When someone else gets to decide that your "right" will be curtailed because of some "edge case", that's known as a privilege, not a right. Likewise, your concept of "rights" is flawed if it includes any possibility of conflicts. Real rights—negative rights—do not conflict with each other. If an action would infringe on someone else's natural rights then it's out-of-bounds without their consent. If not, it's permitted. Simple and entirely conflict-free.

There are flaws in the American Constitution but this is not one of them. The failing lies in the courts, for making up exceptions contrary to the law and to natural rights, and in the EU for codifying those flaws into its own legal system.

[conjectures]

The way to read this is:

- they think the restriction is necessary;

- they have considered whether the said rights outweigh the need for the restriction, and believe they do not.

[mschuster91]

> Freedom of expression, and information?!

You conflate a number of things here. First of all, Russia Today and Sputnik are no EU citizens or corporations, they are entities of the Russian government. Therefore, they are not protected from being banned or censored in the EU. And for what it's worth, their actual journalists still can work in the EU, and publish their work, just not under the banner of the two banned entities - that's assuming they want to work for the dictatorship, which many seem to not want any more [1].

Second, the "firehose of lies" that Russia Today and Sputnik have used over the last decade to sow distrust into virtually every aspect of our lives is an attack on freedom of expression here. Hard to use your freedom of expression if you end up getting death threats from a bunch of propaganda-brainwashed trolls (see e.g. the recent thread about a German anti-vaxxer, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30288582). Citizens of the UK can't enjoy any EU-guaranteed human rights any more because Russian propaganda and dark money goaded a tiny majority towards Brexit.

Third, Russia is a country that has committed what can be seen as acts of hostility towards the EU. Not just the mentioned propaganda warfare, but also cyberattacks, violations of airspace, or the string of attempted and successful murders of Russian dissidents using highly dangerous radioactive and chemical weapons. The European Union is under no obligation to support any rights of any entity associated to an enemy, an enemy that broke all rules of diplomacy and international law.

[1]: https://www.t-online.de/finanzen/unternehmen-verbraucher/id_...

[SiempreViernes]

Are you seriously expressing outrage that the legislation describing the limits to the freedom of expression is in the section about freedom of expression?

[causi]

Censorship does not have to be public. Private companies can and do censor things all the time. They have that right. Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship.

[detaro]

> Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship.

That's not a universal definition, no. E.g. in the EU Facebook and Twitter have lost cases where they blocked posts for "ToS violations" and were ordered to restore them on free speech grounds. (whereas apparently in the US the perspective is more that banning corporations from banning people is violating the corps free speech rights, and doesn't see as much of a balance there)

[nybble41]

It is a universal definition, as natural rights are universal. What it is not is a legal definition, but you are attempting to make a legal argument.

[detaro]

And the restriction the comment I replied to made is not part of the universal definition, but based on legal interpretation in parts of the world.

[BitwiseFool]

> "Freedom of speech is freedom from government censorship, not private censorship."

I really detest this line of thought. What good are the concept of human rights when people declare that private companies by definition cannot infringe on them?

[derefr]

Interactions with companies are fundamentally voluntarist. Not in the sense that you can’t end up with a corporate dystopia; but rather in the sense that a motivated populace can destroy a corporate dystopia just by demanding legislation, without fighting a literal civil war, the way they’d have to do for a government dystopia.

[wazoox]

That's a pleasant fiction. Just like the fiction that the large company and the job-seeker are on an equal foot when contracting... Unfortunately, there are such things as corruption, lobbying and regulatory capture everywhere. The bigger the companies, the bigger the corruption, lobbying and regulatory capture, up to the point where, shazam! you're not in a democracy anymore.

[cduzz]

The government can take your life, property, family, and history.

I don't think it is unreasonable to hold "the government" to a different standard than "other people" or "corporations".

There is nuance to this, as there is with absolutely everything, but "monopoly on violence" is a big distinction.

[causi]

Because your rights end where other peoples' begins, and controlling what a company allows or doesn't allow on its platform is compelled speech, which is unconstitutional in the US. For example, a baker has the right to censor you by not allowing you to order a cake that says "Heil Hitler" on it.

[BitwiseFool]

> "Because your rights end where other peoples' begins"

Understandable, but what happens when rights conflict in the other direction? Why doesn't my ISP's right to block access to parts of the Web end where my right to consume information begins? Why do we place more importance on the 'rights' of an abstract non-living corporation above the rights of actual citizens?

> "what a company allows or doesn't allow on its platform is compelled speech"

Would this make things like Net Neutrality and public broadcasting laws likewise unconstitutional? The government always requires this for several things deemed to be in the public square. I see no flaw in bringing parts of the Internet's infrastructure into it.

> "a baker has the right to censor you"

Scale and scope matters. We're not talking about a mom and pop shop choosing not to do business with you, we're talking about multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies.

[krapp]

>Why doesn't my ISP's right to block access to parts of the Web end where my right to consume information begins?

For the same reason that a restaurant refusing service to you is not a violation of your right to food. You can still consume information without a contract under a specific ISP.

>Why do we place more importance on the 'rights' of an abstract non-living corporation above the rights of actual citizens?

We don't. The rights that protect corporations are actually protecting the people involved with and interacting with that corporation. Rights don't only exist exclusively for individuals, they can be expressed by groups and protect people in aggregate. The freedom of religion, for instance, would be meaningless if it only applied to the "abstract, non-living" concept of "religion," or could only be exercised by individuals, and not religious organizations.

[causi]

Would this make things like Net Neutrality and public broadcasting laws likewise unconstitutional

These are a trade the provider makes with the government to abide by certain rules such as content neutrality and in exchange get many advantages from the government. For example, common carriers are exempt from state and local barriers to entry and receive universal access subsidies. While I wish US ISPs were common carriers they currently are not.

[mardifoufs]

This is not about the US and you are misinterpreting the baker's Supreme Court case anyways

[causi]

I'm also not referencing it. The gay wedding cake case was decided on the basis of the baker being directly targeted by the local government.