In this article for The Guardian, author Shaun Walker reports on a draft law being readied in Poland making it illegal for tech companies to censor free speech. In a statement released by the country’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, he said “Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not…censorship of free speech, which is the domain of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is now returning in the form of a new, commercial mechanism to combat those who think differently”.
Under the draft law, Big Tech companies imposing censorship will be fined. Also, users can also petition the court to force social media companies to restore content if they believed it did not violate Polish law.
Editor’s Note: Social media censorship is problematic because it is arbitrary. Who chooses which values are upheld in social media, and which ones should be censored? What are the credentials of the people censoring content? Are we like children who needed a parent to tell us what information to believe, and which ones to doubt?
We commend Poland for making a decisive action to prevent censorship, and to protect free speech and open access to information. We hope that more countries follow suit.
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