来源：《经济学人》
原文刊登日期：2022年4月28日
Restoring the supremacy of America’s First Amendment on Twitter seems priority number one for Elon Musk. Inconveniently, his acquisition of Twitter comes as several countries are passing laws to regulate how social-media firms should moderate content.
恢复美国第一修正案在Twitter上的至高无上地位似乎是埃隆·马斯克的首要任务。不方便的是，在他收购Twitter之际，几个国家正在通过法律来规范社交媒体公司应该如何控制内容。
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which was agreed on April 23rd, will do most to stymie Mr Musk’s plans to turn Twitter back into a place where almost anything goes. “Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules—regardless of their shareholding,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market, warned hours after the buy-out was announced.
欧盟的《数字服务法》（DSA）于4月23日通过，这将极大地阻碍马斯克将推特变回一个几乎说什么都行的地方的计划。“无论是汽车还是社交媒体，在欧洲运营的任何公司都需要遵守我们的规定，无论其持股情况如何，”欧盟内部市场专员蒂埃里·布雷顿在收购宣布数小时后警告说。
Bureaucrats in Brussels will not now tell Twitter and other social-media firms which type of speech they should take down, explains Julian Jaursch of SNV, a think-tank based in Berlin. Instead, the thrust of the DSA, which is set to apply fully on January 1st 2024, is to push services to systematise and strengthen their content moderation. For instance, Twitter will have to be more transparent over how it polices its platform, follow regulators’ advice on how to improve things, provide a way for users to flag bad content easily and give vetted researchers access to key data. Repeated violations can lead to hefty fines: up to 6% of global annual sales.
总部位于柏林的智库SNV的朱利安·约尔什解释说，布鲁塞尔的官员们现在不会告诉Twitter和其他社交媒体公司它们应该删除哪种类型的言论。相反，将于2024年1月1日全面实施的DSA法案的主旨是推动服务系统化并加强内容审核。例如，Twitter将不得不在如何监管其平台方面更加透明，遵循监管机构关于如何改进的建议，为用户提供一种轻松标记不良内容的方式，并让经过审查的研究人员访问关键数据。反复违规可能导致巨额罚款：最高达全球年销售额的6%。
Surprisingly, given Britain’s long tradition of protecting free speech, its Online Safety Bill, which was recently introduced in Parliament, goes further. Details still need to be hammered out but the bill will require internet platforms, among other things, to go after not only illegal content, such as child pornography, but “legal but harmful” abuses such as racism or bullying. Fines are higher, too: up to 10% of global revenues.
令人惊讶的是，鉴于英国保护言论自由的悠久传统，其最近在议会提出的《网络安全法案》走得更远。具体细节仍需敲定，但该法案将要求互联网平台除追查儿童色情等非法内容外，还要追查种族主义或欺凌等“合法但有害”的伤害行为。罚款也更高：最高达全球收入的10%。
Other countries, including Australia and India, have recently passed their versions of such laws. Even in America there is a big debate about how to reform Section 230, the provision in the Communications Decency Act that shields online services from liability for content published on their platforms. Yet it is unlikely to result in legislation in the foreseeable future. Democrats want stricter rules whereas Republicans fear censorship—and Congress is paralysed.
包括澳大利亚和印度在内的其他国家最近也通过了各自版本的此类法律。即使是在美国，关于如何改革《通信规范法》第230条也存在很大争议。该条款规定，网络服务公司不必为其平台上发布的内容承担责任。然而，在可预见的未来，这不太可能导致立法。民主党人想要更严格的规则，而共和党人害怕审查——国会瘫痪了。
Yet even without all these laws, Mr Musk may soon come to realise some content moderation is needed. After years of debate and experiment, even a few free-speech advocates argue that, while tricky, if done well it “actually enables more free speech”, in the words of Mike Masnick of Techdirt, a blog. “What content moderation does,” he recently wrote, “is create spaces where more people can feel free to talk.”
然而，即使没有所有这些法律，马斯克可能很快就会意识到，有必要对内容进行一些审核。经过多年的辩论和实验，即使是一些言论自由的倡导者也认为，虽然有点棘手，但用Techdirt博客的迈克•马斯尼克的话来说，如果做得好，“实际上会让更多的言论自由得以实现”。“内容审核的作用，”他最近写道，“是创造空间，让更多的人可以自由交谈。”