Olives @olives@qoto.org

The IWF is from the U.K. which is not even part of the E.U. and the U.K. Conservative Party was all proud about leaving the E.U...

It's also another reminder that these policies are being primarily pushed by U.S. / U.K. affiliated groups. Even one of the more European looking groups is actually a local branch of a U.S. group.

It does seem they tried to target a particular "page" but that's not really something that is technically feasible.

It's also quite questionable for a random charity, with a tenuous mandate, to engage in censorship, and to second guess the world's largest encyclopedia. This is also the highest profile case, chances are they were doing all sorts of unpleasant things with lower profile sites.

"ECLAG". Another "think of the children" group crawling out of thin air. Many of them are not E.U. based groups, despite trying to influence E.U. legislation through this group.

According to their website, they're comprised of Thorn (a scanning software selling firm), the IWF (a conservative group which is seemingly friends with the British Conservative Party), Brave (funded by the Oak Foundation), ECPAT (1) (known for signing the same letter supporting mass surveillance something like 50 times), and a couple of unknown groups.

The IWF is best known for blocking Wikipedia a decade ago for a few days. This was over a very obscure page containing an image of a naked child from the 70s. This image appears to have been a band cover for an German album (not to be confused with the band cover a Canadian group dislikes) which is commonly available in physical British stores.

It appears to be protected by the First Amendment. Even if it was problematic content, it would still have been grossly disproportionate to do what they did. They withdrew the block, though explicitly refused to say that they were wrong, and came up with a flimsy face saving excuse for withdrawing it, after accruing sufficient public scrutiny. What's so striking here isn't just that they did it, and withdrew it, it is the absolute lack of a modicum of responsibility or accountability from them.

Records indicate the IWF also appeared involved in lobbying the British Government to ban some forms of porn they consider "obscene", both historically (over a decade ago) and seemingly more recently. A bad idea (2,3). It seems they operate illegally (4).

Also, why is such a group trying to influence legislation in the European Union...?

1 https://qoto.org/@olives/111390296356122739

2 https://qoto.org/@olives/111413137710570303

3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111191543236620885

4 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.08958

Not that I particularly like those, but that would be a pretty extreme thing to do.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/FEMM/AD/2023/11-13/1288754EN.pdf I hope they won't accidentally end up banning sexist / hateful jokes.

There is this strange fantasy that a company is the one to go above and beyond in protecting free expression, but in the real world, it's companies who suppress free expression on very frivolous grounds, and it is up to the user to fight the company. #chatcontrol

Strong warning that "risk assessments" are an extremely dangerous passive censorship tool. Mandatory ones should be deleted.

1) Companies (and honestly, even the government) are very bad at quantifying risk. An "assessment" is also evidence which can be twisted against them, either in the court of public opinion, a real court, or somewhere else. Also, even if a company tries to be proportionate (or rights respective), the apparent fact they passed over "some apparent risk" can be twisted against them to achieve clearly authoritarian ends.

2) Companies (and government) are uniquely susceptible to any group (and their ideas) who brand themselves as "anti-exploitation". They might have very weird motivations (such as religious ones) or pursue various brands of hearsay.

3) It allows lawmakers to wash their hands of explicitly demanding various modes of censorship, even if that is what they practically expect.

#chatcontrol

"At least one in five children falls victim to sexual violence during childhood"

Extremely dubious propaganda.

It also doesn't appear to have a citation (if there is a citation, it is to a page which makes an assertion). It is simply asserted (as seems to often be the case). It's unclear if it is remotely true, or what context is behind it.

#chatcontrol

Also, remember this.

Of course, the Commission which failed to disclose their "list" for #chatcontrol also fails to disclose a list for #eidas.

It also looks pretty fringe. Pretty fringe. And adds diversity.

I don't really understand people who think about that last one.

I don't know what could be accomplished by punting people who don't really want to be there there.

https://nichegamer.com/social-media-users-whine-about-terrorism-in-grand-theft-auto/ I see there are Twitter trolls learning from 00s conservative moral panics.

"patented designs, algorithms"

Would it make a difference if the designs and algorithms were not patented?

https://nichegamer.com/microsoft-and-epic-games-hit-with-video-game-addiction-lawsuit/ America, the land of silly frivolous lawsuits.

Yes, though many of the people who were consulted are very authoritarian / activist in favor of mass surveillance / censorship. So, there is already an obvious slant there.

The sort of people who don't care for your rights, and see them as an obstacle, are highly disproportionate, and don't care for the downsides of this.

So, yes, she probably picked out the bits to justify her proposal, but it also seems like a very authoritarian group, to begin with. #chatcontrol