Freedom of speech // Is the West falling behind?

[The Alma Mater]

Poland, this u?

Elżbieta, Anna and Joanna – whose last names have not been released – were arrested in 2019 and charged the next year after they stuck up posters of the Virgin Mary adorned with a rainbow halo, symbolic of the popular flag used to represent the LGBT+ community.

I am kinda wondering.. how would Poland respond if people made accurate depictions of Mary instead of the whitewashed version ?

So dark skin, noserings, lots of jewellery, brightly coloured - pretty similar to Roma.

[Vassenor]

Poland, this u?

Elżbieta, Anna and Joanna – whose last names have not been released – were arrested in 2019 and charged the next year after they stuck up posters of the Virgin Mary adorned with a rainbow halo, symbolic of the popular flag used to represent the LGBT+ community.

I am kinda wondering.. how would Poland respond if people made accurate depictions of Mary instead of the whitewashed version ?

So dark skin, noserings, lots of jewellery, brightly coloured - pretty similar to Roma.

Given how people react to the knowledge that Jesus wasn't white and was instead your average middle eastern Jew?

Should be spicy.

[The Alma Mater]

I am kinda wondering.. how would Poland respond if people made accurate depictions of Mary instead of the whitewashed version ?

So dark skin, noserings, lots of jewellery, brightly coloured - pretty similar to Roma.

Given how people react to the knowledge that Jesus wasn't white and was instead your average middle eastern Jew?

Should be spicy.

Can be spicier if someone were to sue churches for blasphemous depictions of Jesus and mom.

[Betoni]

If you are televising a debate you are not a social media site, you are a tv station. It's kind of idiotic to compare the two. You do realise that, even if you spam twitter with the most genius ideas ever and the ultimate talking points of politics today, it is not being broadcast to a general audience, right? There is no "the" debate on twitter, or any social media, there is only each individual bubble, that sometimes overlaps with other bubbles.

I've got an idea, you know how, social media and the like, make a big chunk of their money out of selling user generated data or use that date to sell targeted advertising? How about you tax them by the amount of data they collect? Then you can go ahead and enable all kinds of debate with that money, or whatever you like.

I wasn't comparing a TV station to a social media platform, I was saying that you cannot discriminate based on political views, irrespective of whether you're a TV station, a radio station, or a social media platform. Prior to Dorsey's insane and divisive banning spree, there was quite a bit of intersectionality on Twitter.

Taxing companies based on data collection is idiotic, since it's nearly impossible to measure a per byte value. If I share my email, that takes a few bytes, but it's more valuable than if I post a cat video, that takes takes a few megabytes. If you wanted to tax social media platforms, first make sure that they're large enough so that taxation won't kill them, and second, tax them based on their shareholder and stock reports. That's an easily defined number, but considering that they're heavily influencing the Democratic Party, and Republican Congressmen are typically allergic to taxation, that ain't going to happen.

I'm sorry, you weren't? I literally quoted you doing that on the post you replied to.

So, I get taxed by the amount of fuel I buy at the gas station. Nobody asks how productively I use that gasoline, it just is taxed by the gallon yeah? You install facebook on your phone, you get to use their shitty excuse of social media platform if you let them make financial use of the data you generate by only installing the app. The government is not getting really anything out of this deal. Why does the government get to tax the gasoline and not your data? Especially, as you point out that social media probably has an impact on elections.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

I am kinda wondering.. how would Poland respond if people made accurate depictions of Mary instead of the whitewashed version ?

So dark skin, noserings, lots of jewellery, brightly coloured - pretty similar to Roma.

Given how people react to the knowledge that Jesus wasn't white and was instead your average middle eastern Jew?

Should be spicy.

Why do people argue about Jesus' race when we literally know where He was from. He was Middle Eastern.

[Shofercia]

I wasn't comparing a TV station to a social media platform, I was saying that you cannot discriminate based on political views, irrespective of whether you're a TV station, a radio station, or a social media platform. Prior to Dorsey's insane and divisive banning spree, there was quite a bit of intersectionality on Twitter.

Taxing companies based on data collection is idiotic, since it's nearly impossible to measure a per byte value. If I share my email, that takes a few bytes, but it's more valuable than if I post a cat video, that takes takes a few megabytes. If you wanted to tax social media platforms, first make sure that they're large enough so that taxation won't kill them, and second, tax them based on their shareholder and stock reports. That's an easily defined number, but considering that they're heavily influencing the Democratic Party, and Republican Congressmen are typically allergic to taxation, that ain't going to happen.

I'm sorry, you weren't? I literally quoted you doing that on the post you replied to.

So, I get taxed by the amount of fuel I buy at the gas station. Nobody asks how productively I use that gasoline, it just is taxed by the gallon yeah? You install facebook on your phone, you get to use their shitty excuse of social media platform if you let them make financial use of the data you generate by only installing the app. The government is not getting really anything out of this deal. Why does the government get to tax the gasoline and not your data? Especially, as you point out that social media probably has an impact on elections.

Let's quote what I said: If you're televising a debate, you have to televise both sides. You can't televise the Democrats, and play hard rock when the Republicans are talking. And yet, through its series of tubes, excuse me, bans, Twitter banned primarily Conservatives, thus making the debate one sided.

Unless you think that there are televised debates with hundreds of people talking on live air, the comparison was metaphorical, especially since I mentioned a series of bans, which happen over a longer time period than a two hour debate.

Also, bytes are not fuel, because fuel prices don't vary that wildly. You're not going to find a barrel of fuel worth $0.05 and another one worth $5,000, but you can find a megabyte worth $0.05 and another one worth $5,000. Hence my suggestion to base the tax policy on the fiscal presentations that these companies make to their investors. Since they're publically traded companies, the Government should have access to said presentations, including the numbers in those presentations, and tax accordingly.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Yeah they should be taxed by a percentage of revenue minus costs. I guess I'd require them to set up a subsidiary in each country, though this gets into the tricky question of how to divide advertising revenue when the content comes from one country and the "paying customer" attracted to said content is in another country.

"Censorship" is a non issue. If the operator goes too far in cleaning up the available content then significant number of users will prefer a competing service, with less censorship or perhaps oppositely biased censorship. They could probably use a less dumb ratings system too, say downvote by default, but one upvote if the viewer genuinely likes it. Maybe poster rating so you can set the filter not to see stuff that most people don't like. Ultimately though, a platform censoring comments is nothing but a great way to wreck their own monopoly.

[Shofercia]

Yeah they should be taxed by a percentage of revenue minus costs. I guess I'd require them to set up a subsidiary in each country, though this gets into the tricky question of how to divide advertising revenue when the content comes from one country and the "paying customer" attracted to said content is in another country.

"Censorship" is a non issue. If the operator goes too far in cleaning up the available content then significant number of users will prefer a competing service, with less censorship or perhaps oppositely biased censorship. They could probably use a less dumb ratings system too, say downvote by default, but one upvote if the viewer genuinely likes it. Maybe poster rating so you can set the filter not to see stuff that most people don't like. Ultimately though, a platform censoring comments is nothing but a great way to wreck their own monopoly.

You base it on the paying customer, since the paying customer's the one generating the revenue. If a Nevada logging company decides to sell their lumber to California's home construction group, they pay California's sales taxes.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Yeah they should be taxed by a percentage of revenue minus costs. I guess I'd require them to set up a subsidiary in each country, though this gets into the tricky question of how to divide advertising revenue when the content comes from one country and the "paying customer" attracted to said content is in another country.

"Censorship" is a non issue. If the operator goes too far in cleaning up the available content then significant number of users will prefer a competing service, with less censorship or perhaps oppositely biased censorship. They could probably use a less dumb ratings system too, say downvote by default, but one upvote if the viewer genuinely likes it. Maybe poster rating so you can set the filter not to see stuff that most people don't like. Ultimately though, a platform censoring comments is nothing but a great way to wreck their own monopoly.

You base it on the paying customer, since the paying customer's the one generating the revenue. If a Nevada logging company decides to sell their lumber to California's home construction group, they pay California's sales taxes.

That's online retail though. Advertising revenue I think, works with a tiny payment per view and a bigger one per click. Possibly the advertiser pays even more if the customer arrived from an ad and made a purchase in the same session ... though the agency (eg google) would need an inside look at the company advertising to collect on that.

I'm disinclined to try and tax companies for advertising, since there's so many of them. So tax Google where they are paid: the jurisdiction of the advertiser. Next problem: requiring the advertiser to be headquartered in the same jurisdiction as the vendor of what's advertised. My head hurts.