HN Reader

Note how lots of slicing is provided on a bunch of dimensions except the one that really matters: age groups. Fully willing to bet 60+ is both more likely to answer these surveys and very pro-censorship. If we weighted this survey by remaining life expectancy I bet the results would be inverted.

I've changed the title to be more precise (from tech regulation to social media regulation).

It's important though, that attempts from foreign governmental entities (you might guess which country) might backfire if it's against popular policy decisions. I'm not sure if this foreign government is aware of it.

> favors more tech regulation

You mean "social media regulation". Not "tech regulation".

I think we should shut down the current crop of social media but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I think an easier way to achieves instead of imposing this on everyone. Social media companies should be required to add paid tier where the individual user can block the types of the user does not want to see, (or just block all of them).

In some places perhaps the government would ban "free social media" and only allow the paid tier to operate.

This in the best case would make the price reasonably low, if the social media company does not want to lose a lot of users. Perhaps even subsidised. At which point the goal set above is achieved.

This is a poorly worded survey. Everyone wants bad things to happen to things they don't like. Government regulation is a bad thing, nothing government does has good outcomes. Usually government regulators get captured by someone and corrupted, or they just create a lot of inefficiency and headaches for everyone.

media structures can be used as arms. most of the current media content is not "speech" (opinion, human talk, etc.) but targeted consumer or political product. both of them are regulated on their traditional platforms but not on new tech, and the big tech tries to avoid it, escaping behind the "free speech" lie.

From reading the page the study “examines public attitudes social media regulation and banning political advertising from social platforms.”

The question: To what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose banning political adverts from being shown on social media platforms?

They conclude with: Voters for far-right parties are frequently less likely to support banning of political advertising on social media … and less likely to think regulations are too lax … typically less likely to think social media regulations are too relaxed (with Italy being an exception).

The questions seem more focused around social media but I wish there were more safeguards to stop us (I’m talking as an EU citizen) from crashing and burning when the AI bubble pops.

As a European, I think we should block X and Meta.

They're cesspools of far-right propaganda, American and Russian disinformation and psychological warfare on our population.

Democracy has to defend itself. We shouldn't just let foreign despots and their oligarchs walk all over us with their cyberweapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy

This is the reason the UK voted for Brexit /s

My pet idea (which I'm also reluctant to fully get behind):

Participation in social media (including comments sections in newspapers, etc) only with verified identities but behind some sort of escrow (so that you're anonymous to the public and also the platform... until you break the law by threatening SA or similar).

Why?

Bots, trolls, etc are a huge problem and if only actual people could post, this would a bit harder for bad actors.

Good thing that "“The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”.

Make no mistake nor be mislead that this is the slippery slope to Huxley + Orwel's 84

yes, majority of EU censorship is in favor of mainstream propaganda

I don't condone more regulation if it means decreasing the public's voice. Some things a society should endure in order to LEARN or GROW as a society or a person. There are things worth keeping out of that sphere but it's minimally relevant to this legal push. After all "far right" is not the issue, it's far left.