Olives @olives@qoto.org

One of the talking heads is a "start-up" trying to sell moderation services and trying to work hard to show that they have meaning. It really makes you wonder how much of this is driven by a few companies looking to make a quick buck off it.

"with 66 percent of it “highly photorealistic.”"

Also, while this number seems "impressive", it suffers from significant selection bias. You go to a place where you know the proportion will be higher and go "oh look, the proportion is high".

It still feels like someone is desperately trying to scrounge up anecdotes, weak and vague opinions from various talking heads, and playing up a problem which isn't really much of a thing. It's a weird obsession when there are far bigger fish to fry.

A company which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars is upset that they might have to do a bit more moderation and spend a bit more money.

"Explicit computer-generated images of kids are popping up online, and no one knows how to stop them"

Some more bad takes:

1) Someone was posting them to piss the admin off on one specific tiny site.

2) It's bad because it's bad.

3) Facebook is upset that it adds to their moderation workload.

These takes are so lazy and so boring that they're not even wasting energy on. Just putting them out as examples of bad takes.

Even with a hosting service, there might be hundreds or thousands of sites (and differing contexts), run by different people, on a server. There might be many servers in such a company.

It's also extremely likely that they don't have the technological capability to spy on people (or it would involve the use of considerable resources), as that would greatly constrain possible technologies that customers could make use of, and undermine their security.

Also, spying on random things on a server is clearly bad for privacy. Do you want your trade secrets to be siphoned off by someone's half-baked algorithm? Have you begun to think about how stupid this idea is?

#chatcontrol

It feels more like "we've never thought of it", "we don't know what you're talking about", or click a button and send a pre-fabricated response by routine.

Could be way off though.

How about transparent walls around the toilet. You have nothing to hide, right? It's not as if we don't already know what you're doing in there.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/man-accused-of-finland-psychotherapy-hack-charged-with-21000-counts-of-extortion

"Prosecutors in Finland have charged a hacker, accused of the theft of tens of thousands of records from psychotherapy patients, with more than 21,000 counts of extortion.

“The suspect is held on remand and has denied being guilty of the offences,” the national prosecution authority said in a statement on Wednesday."

"In the 2018 breach of the Finnish firm Vastaamo, which oversaw dozens of psychotherapy centres throughout the Nordic nation, the private treatment records of tens of thousands of patients were stolen."

"According to the prosecution, Kivimäki also sent extortion letters to patients demanding sums ranging from €200 to €500 to prevent the disclosure of records of their therapy sessions.

Kivimäki was also charged with 9,598 counts of dissemination of information infringing on personal privacy.

Following a European arrest warrant issued by the Finnish police in October 2022, he was arrested in the Paris region on 3 February."

https://reason.com/2023/10/18/should-governments-need-a-warrant-to-spy-on-you-with-a-drone/

"Should Governments Need a Warrant To Spy on You With a Drone?"

"A Michigan township sued a local family over a minor zoning violation, but the case could determine whether governments can spy on citizens without warrants. Today, the Michigan Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the case."

"Todd and Heather Maxon live in Long Lake Township, on five acres of land with two garages. Todd likes to work on cars, so he keeps some on the property. In 2008, the township sued, accusing them of storing "junk," a zoning violation. In exchange for dropping the charges, the couple agreed not to expand their collection. Neighbors later complained that the Maxons had indeed acquired more cars, but the collection was not visible from the road.

Instead of getting a warrant—or, since nothing was visible from the road, dropping the issue altogether—the township hired a private drone company to fly over the property and take pictures several times between 2010 and 2018. Citing the pictures, the township sued the Maxons for violating the agreement."

https://reclaimthenet.org/new-york-bill-calls-for-a-background-check-on-anyone-that-wants-to-buy-a-3d-printer

"New York lawmakers are proposing a bill that could destroy the right to privacy and increase surveillance to an unsettling extent. The bill, spearheaded by State Senator Jenifer Rajkumar, posits that New Yorkers seeking to purchase 3D printers would first be subject to a criminal background check before the buy. This proposition poses substantial implications, particularly related to personal privacy and the potential to open the Pandora’s box of surveillance."

"Why the proposed law? The rationale behind the proposed legislation’s genesis lies in connecting the dots to the gun industry. Phantom weapons, aka “ghost guns,” are guns that lack identification numbers for tracking, and are, therefore, untraceable."

That's not the only thing someone might do with a 3D printer though.

https://www.al.com/news/2023/10/small-town-police-sued-for-planting-drugs-on-drivers-in-north-alabama.html

"After a small-town police officer was indicted this year in a scheme to frame drivers for drug possession in north Alabama, one driver is suing for wrongful arrest, arguing that former Centre officer Michael Kilgore planted drugs in his car and used a police dog from another department to find the contraband."

"After (Officer) Kilgore’s scheme was exposed, the charges against Plaintiff and numerous other victims of the scheme were dropped. Accordingly, plaintiff brings this action for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution,” said a complaint in the lawsuit filed in federal court last month."

"His lawsuit claims he was forced to sleep on the concrete jail floor which caused a shoulder injury. His name, mugshot and charges were published in the local paper."

"I am afraid this case is just scratching the surface of the damage Officer Kilgore has done to the innocent people he arrested for possessing or distributing drugs, drugs that he planted on them so he could get another drug bust to his credit,” said Jon Goldfarb, Blevins’ attorney."

Bad faith actors don't even seem to realize that over-censorship actually leads to someone viewing more content they don't like. There are quite a few reasons for that.

One is that someone might just pursue more permissive (or incompetent) avenues. Still, they seem overly paranoid regardless.

Apparently, there has been some interesting discourse in Japan with Ken Akamatsu. If you remember, he was the mangaka, and free expression advocate (though, also a bit of a copyright advocate for better or worse) who got elected to Japan's upper house, the House of Councilors, last year as part of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

He appears to be looking into commercial AI art. I'm not sure how practical it would be in practice (it could be quite burdensome), however, he wants to figure out how to compensate artists who created works in the training sets (one idea is to take a cut of the proceeds and to put it in a shared fund to be dispensed).

Frankly, I think AI art is less interesting than manually drawn art, especially when you've seen enough of it.

He also suggests that we must be vigilant for attempts to push for restrictions on expression and to vigorously oppose them.

https://reclaimthenet.org/israeli-minister-calls-for-arrest-of-journalists-and-citizens-that-share-information-that-harms-national-morale

"In a moment where the essence of free speech is under scrutiny worldwide, a controversial move by Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has sparked profound concern among proponents of free expression and the principles of a democratic society. Karhi is in the process of advancing regulations, authorizing the arrest of individuals and seizure of property based on the subjective judgment that their communication undermines “national morale” or aids enemy propaganda."

"Broad in their scope, these regulations aren’t confined to potential misinformation or enemy rhetoric but extend to factually accurate statements and mainstream media coverage, both domestic and international. It would allow Israeli police to arrest Israeli citizens, including journalists, for sharing information that is critical of Israel."

I see Julie is mad? at Discord because they reckon that scanning for abuse in livestreams would be prohibitively expensive? Aren't there like a hundred cases in any particular year in the world? I recall someone (who used to work at FB) came up with a number like this in 2021 (I don't pay close attention to it).

There's a religious savior group which claims higher, however, they're accused by progressive outlets of having a history of making misleading exaggerated claims.

It feels like another case of "let's find an excuse to be mad at tech companies"? This is not going to grow your tech sector, Julie.

She is also upset that companies aren't invading user privacy, because of course she is. She also appears to be advocating measures which would likely have extremely high rates of false positives, because of course she is.