Poland is turning into a champion in a dark European Union…
Quote:
Social media companies that remove posts whose content is legal can be fined up to €1.8 million under a new Polish bill. Users have welcomed its introduction as an antidote to other countries’ growing censorship demands.
Any social media company that removes content or blocks accounts that do not violate Polish law can be fined under the new legislation, announced in a press conference on Thursday by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro. The bill also creates a special Court for the Protection of Freedom of Speech within one of the district courts.
Individuals whose posts have been censored will have the right to complain to the platform in question, which has 24 hours to respond. The user then has 48 hours to petition the new court to have their content reinstated, and the court then has seven days to consider the petition.
If the court finds in favor of the user and the social media platform does not restore the content or unblock the account, they will be fined up to €1.8 million by the Office of Electronic Communications. The whole process will happen online, according to Ziobro.
The victims of “ideological censorship” are unfairly quashed by social media platforms “just because they express views and refer to values that are unacceptable from the point of view of communities…with an ever-stronger influence on the functioning of social media,” the justice minister said.
The user of social media must feel that his rights are protected. Nor can there be any censorship of speech. Freedom of speech and freedom of debate are the essence of democracy.
The new court will also be tasked with handling blocking requests regarding content that does violate Polish law. Additionally, it will handle a new type of “blind” lawsuit in which someone who is wronged by an anonymous party on the internet can file a lawsuit to correct the wrong, even without the defendant’s personal data. All that would be needed for such a suit is the offender’s username, the website where the offending post was made, and the date and time of posting.
source
https://www.rt.com/news/510352-poland-free-speech-social-media/