People outside the U.S. should care about this because so much social media is based in the U.S..
i.e. If you post an anti-MAGA meme to Facebook or reddit from an identifiable account you could be charged as this man was. Perhaps the U.S. will try to extradite you. (I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.) However, the U.S. might also choose to wait and then arrest you if you ever travel to or through the U.S..
The U.S.'s slide away from freedom of speech could have a huge global impact on people who might think it doesn't effect them. We are far too reliant on American social media.
Canada, the E.U., etc. should be looking at protections to prevent social media companies operating servers in their jurisdictions from sharing information with the U.S. government. It's no longer a hypothetical situation. There is a real threat that is clearly evident now.
> I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.
EDIT: If you're an emigrant:
More than just a PITA, you could still fail; see [1].
Also - I can't find the source right now - I remember hearing about Russian emigrants in Europe being charged with serious crimes in absentia over criticism of the war, and they were slated for deportation because the bureaucracy still considered all such Russian warrants as valid. The US would probably be harder to excise in this regard.
Which developing countries? I thought that many of those countries were either tied up with 'real', physical crime or just wouldn't care about internet stuff all that much. Lots of sketchy websites (like lots of piracy-related stuff) are hosted in countries where legal consequences are unlikely, even if it's illegal on paper. I can see how the more authoritarian countries can be going after social media posts based on grudges, but I'm wondering about which ones actively practice it - I don't know much about it.
> Perhaps the U.S. will try to extradite you. (I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.)
I don't think there's any countries that allow extradition for actions that aren't crimes in their own country. Extradition treaties, as far as I know, aren't straightforward conveyor belts that let any countries hoover up anyone inconvenient for them, the requested countries don't want to let go of their own people for no reason, and can deny these requests as they see fit.
Being held up at an entry point to the US is a real worry, but at this stage I feel like they're not quite psychotic enough to be causing international drama over a Facebook post, so actions like these will probably remain domestic for a while.
The location where these websites are hosted probably doesn't matter - if you posted something the US doesn't like and you end up in a situation where they can get to you, no one would care about where exactly you posted it. All bets are off.
Yes many countries will decide to extradite for actions which are legal in said country.
I am French, and we recently convinced Scotland to extradite a French man who was denying the existence of the Holocaust and gaz chamber, which is something you could do in Scotland if you do it without violence.
So indeed it’s possible.
But I don’t think it’s the same as extraditing for a meme.
That's surprising, I hadn't heard about that. I had assumed that this was a blanket rule that generally applied to these treaties. I wonder how the UK justified it...
Also, one other differentiator here is that the man, as you described him, was a French citizen. The post up above implies extraditing foreigners from their countries of residence to the US, which is on a whole other level of insanity. Imagine what would've happened if France tried to extradite a Scottish man from within the UK for online posts.
i.e. If you post an anti-MAGA meme to Facebook or reddit from an identifiable account you could be charged as this man was. Perhaps the U.S. will try to extradite you. (I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.) However, the U.S. might also choose to wait and then arrest you if you ever travel to or through the U.S..
The U.S.'s slide away from freedom of speech could have a huge global impact on people who might think it doesn't effect them. We are far too reliant on American social media.
Canada, the E.U., etc. should be looking at protections to prevent social media companies operating servers in their jurisdictions from sharing information with the U.S. government. It's no longer a hypothetical situation. There is a real threat that is clearly evident now.