On Mon, Apr 8, 2019 at 9:26 AM Anna Mazgal <anna@wikimedia.be> wrote:

But looking at the imaginative policies of Orban for example I tend not to underestimate dictator's drive to have things their way, so depending on what they consider as dissent, public threat, etc. The trouble is, that once removal orders are issues, the platforms must remove content and they do not have the option to contest them on the grounds of being absurd.


Yeah, one issue here is that the removal orders would be issued by the national courts, which can be easily subverted by a determined government. We have already seen Orbán abusing anti-terrorist legislation [1] and trying to criminalize NGOs that aid refugees [2], and while the EU has some ability to pressure local strongmen not to adopt local laws which are intended to suppress freedom of speech, it is much less able to prevent them from using existing EU law for that purpose.


[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/syrian-found-guilty-of-terrorism-in-politicized-hungarian-case/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/29/hungary-criminalises-migrant-helpers-stop-george-soros-legislation