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THIS PETITION HAS BEEN STOPPED in favour of another, very similar petition...

With only 27 signatures after six weeks I was getting a little concerned. I had an identical petition, written in German and aimed at the German government and was about to upload that to a German petition website when I discovered a similar petition, that already has almost 260,000 signatures. 

The demands in this other petition are almost identical to mine but the emphasis is entirely based on SAVING DEMOCRACY! That too was one of the two most important benefits in this petition. The second being PROTECT CHILDREN. However both of those benefits plus all the others mentioned in this petition will unequivocally be met should the similar petition's demands be agreed to by either the German or European governments.

Thus I urge you to sign the other petition, I have. It is entitled, "Saving social media as a democratic force" and can be found here, in German:

https://weact.campact.de/petitions/save-social-soziale-netzwerke-als-demokratische-kraft-retten

and here, in English: 

https://savesocial.eu/en/

Not only does the new petition have almost 260,000 signatures, it is backed by many influential people from the fields of politics, journalism, entertainment & art etc. You can see many of those people on the petition owner's website (link above).

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Foreword:
We want, even need, a great Social Media Platform – it is part of our lives. But it must be safe – for everyone. It should never be used to harm children, destroy democracy, radicalise people into violent criminals, spread lies and hate, abuse minorities like LGBTQ, nor spread misogyny and much more.

Our Two Demands:

Demand 1. Final Ultimatum On All Commercial Social Media Platform Owners.
X, Instagram, Facebook, Tik-Tok, Truth Social,YouTube and possibly other similar platforms (e.g. WhatsApp, Reddit etc.) are currently refusing or are not committing to clean up the many harmful posts on their platforms.

The platform owners have enough money to give in to these demands...

Europe, or individual European nations if necessary, must demand that the offending platforms be blocked unless the platform owners can prove that all this trash will be removed and prevented continually, within a short period of time. 

The recommended time-frame is:

1. the platform owners and/or CEOs must unequivocally agree to a clean up of all offending posts and data within one month.
2. Subsequent to that agreement they are given the following three months to prove that they…
   1. have finished deleting all historic posts that no longer apply to strict posting rules.
   2. have also implemented an automatic delayed publication of all posts that should, within minutes, be inspected by AI. AI will be taught continually to recognise content that is not allowed and will delete those posts without approving them for publication. Even AI might discover unapproved posts that are unclear as to whether or not those posts meet the new strict rules, in which case those posts remain unapproved and are sent to human moderators who can make the final judgement, deleting those that do not comply and approving those that do.

 

Contravening the above 2 points must result in a permanent ban across Europe of the offending social media app. Such apps can be replaced with small upgrades to an already existing platform.

Demand 2. An Alternative for Each Non-compliant App.
Fediverse is the name of a Social Media Platform that strives to monitor all content. It houses several different Social Media Apps – equivalent to X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and others.

Fediverse and its Apps are open source. The European Government, or even any single, or any group of, European nations could arrange the development of alternative apps on Fediverse. They could either work with the existing developers, or take a copy of the open source (aka branch) and extend it to fit our needs. Once built the app would be globally available.

Fediverse apps are currently small in terms of users, could, however, be extended to replace the non-compliant apps mentioned above. Not only are they open source, they also have dedicated volunteers who check that all posts conform to its strict rules, which prohibit all the negative issues above. Its aim is to continue with zero cost usage and it currently has no advertising. 

However, this platform is currently small, decentralised and would require resources to improve its extensibility. It also needs a significant increase in server capacity. The individual authors of each component might even agree on a common roadmap, their experience would be very useful.

The current authors might also agree to allow some form of controlled advertising so that revenue can be generated to provide an ROI for the investing government(s) and some form of monetisation for its users and original authors. An import from existing social media applications may also be necessary. If there is no such agreement with the current authors then a copy (branch) of the software would be the solution.

Once a stable app, on an extensible platform, is in place, it can either compete with the sanitised versions of X, FB, Inst etc, or replace the non-compliant apps.

A clean, social media app must hold all posts for approval. It must use AI to detect harmful and dubious posts, deleting the harmful ones immediately and passing the dubious on to human moderators. The remainder are permissible and are published automatically. Only the dubious posts, monitored by humans, may take a little longer to approve or delete. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why is this important?
                                Save Democracy – Save Our Children & More
Many posts and videos are guilty of inciting violent crime, even terrorism; they are responsible for spreading hate, threats, fake news, unfounded conspiracy theories, child abuse and pedophilia, misogyny, gender hatred and racism. Many also perform political interference, such as spreading right-wing ideologies and influencing voters in European countries, seriously endangering our democracy.

None of this can possibly be considered free speech (see addendum) - it is criminal and should be illegal.

If they want us to use their sites, they have to comply within a specified time-frame and with ongoing monitoring, otherwise Europe should block their sites and provide a European alternative for all global users. Such platforms already exist, but they need support!

If you would like to view various peoples views on this petition then watch this 8.5 minute video, you may not even have to read further, it could help you decide to sign, or not. All characters are fictitious. If you are not a friend of videos then you can also just read on. Please listen carefully to the pros and consider helping us achieve this aim, some of the cons may also convince you to sign too,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the alternative?
There is already a global, open source social media platform that, although currently small in terms of users, could be expanded to replace the irresponsible platforms mentioned above. Not only is it open source, it also has dedicated volunteers who check that all posts conform to its strict rules, which prohibit all the negative issues above. Its aim is to continue with zero cost usage and it has no advertising. 

However, this platform is currently small, decentralised, and would require resources to improve its extensibility. It also needs a significant increase in server capacity. The individual authors of each component would have to agree on a common roadmap. Or, as it is open source, the code can be further developed in another branch.

The proposal is that either Europe as a whole, or one or more European nations, should invest in a project that would build a "European Social Media Platform" that could be used freely around the world. The current authors might agree to allow some form of controlled advertising so that revenue can be generated to provide an ROI for the investing government(s) and some form of monetisation for its users and original authors. An import from existing social media applications may also be necessary.

The platform is based on the so-called "Fediverse" which supports a number of different social media applications equivalent to X, FB, Instagram, Youtube and others.

Once a stable and extensible platform is in place, it can either compete with the sanitised versions of X, FB, Inst etc, or replace them. European Social Media must use AI to detect and reject harmful and dubious posts, passing the dubious posts on to human moderators and removing those recognised as harmful before they are published.

Recap
Current Social Media Platforms that are not monitored are causing serious harm to many of our children, even loss of life, and are responsible for all forms of hate, incitement to violence and fascist ideologies. Many posts are endangering our democracy. We must stop it now!

Call to action
Please sign this petition to demand an immediate clean-up of all current social media platforms and to block them if this demand is not met. Also, the implementation of a 'European Clean Version’ of all major social media applications.

For our children, their children and future generations to live in peace, safety and stability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Addendum

            Free Speech...
                is a basic human right, every single human being has that right.

However! It can be abused.

It must never be any of the following...

• Any form of Racism, which includes antisemitism.
• Any form of hatred including…
  • mobbing
  • Gender hatred
  • Misogyny
  • against any religion
  • ethnic inheritance
  • and more…
• Posting instructions on how to build weapons or planning attacks
• Incitement to violence and crime
• Fake News
• Unproven conspiracy theories
• Interference in foreign nation’s politics
• and probably more…

The use of any of the above subjects, whether written, spoken, or posted online is an offensive, sometimes frightening and dangerous abuse of free speech. It should be illegal.

Free speech gives you the right to criticise and complain about anything, even emotionally but never by using threats, lies or unfounded conspiracy theories.

Man has evolved over millions of years. It is time now to evolve further and correct the definition of free speech.

 
One Person Can…
One person (You!) can help by signing this petition to stop these negative, even criminal, social media posts. Here is a website to help you make a difference! But first and foremost – please sign this petition.

ONE-PERSON-CAN  - in all European languages