Olives @olives@qoto.org

For another 2023 highlight, there was the "metaverse". A "platform" which next to no one uses.

For whatever reason, government officials have some wild fantasy of censoring and controlling things, so they started imagining it up as some bigger than life thing. We saw it mentioned at CoE. We saw it mentioned at World Government Summit 2023, where it was described as some world shaking technology which will revolutionize countless fields. We also saw a would-be censor in a country I won't mention for now chasing it, along with a bunch of other highly speculative technologies, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). What's up with that?

If you have any inkling about UX though, it's not hard to understand why it won't takeover the world...

Now, it is hard to say it is absolutely useless, there are a few novel games which use VR headsets, perhaps, that'll go somewhere, although it also may not. However, this dream of having everyone run conferences or their lives out of the #metaverse is assuredly nonsense. The worst one being Facebook's metaverse which removes many of the positive benefits which someone might actually get out of the technology. Hell, it took an eternity for people to even get a bottom half to their bodies, and as is often the case, Mark Zuckerberg was ridiculed for being scared of sex.

We also saw concerns about privacy being voiced, likely largely stemming from Facebook's long history of... Not really being kind when it comes to privacy. Right now, the subject appears to have gone quiet for quite a number of months, which I suppose is probably a good thing. I also went into how bad faith actors were trying to conflate fictional content with reality*.

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

Hah, there are any number of things I could write a dive about. It would be absolutely exhausting to chase all of them though.

Did you know that Dominic Raab wanted to replace the British Human Rights Act with a fake rights bill which made it far harder for someone to challenge a violation of their rights and which also deletes the freedom of expression and makes it about literal speech instead?

And then, when he polled people, around 90% of the population was against it, and it was quietly scrapped?

The argument against prohibition right now is stronger now than it ever was (and it's only going to get stronger, judging by what I've seen).

It's pretty much come out of nowhere after being settled for quite some time. I don't really want to open the can of worms right now though.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-pennsylvania-supreme-court-find-keyword-search-warrant-unconstitutional

"Keyword warrants that let police indiscriminately sift through search engine databases are unconstitutional dragnets that target free speech, lack particularity and probable cause, and violate the privacy of countless innocent people, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other organizations argued in a brief filed today to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Everyone deserves to search online without police looking over their shoulder, yet millions of innocent Americans’ privacy rights are at risk in Commonwealth v. Kurtz—only the second case of its kind to reach a state’s highest court. The brief filed by EFF, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (PACDL) challenges the constitutionality of a keyword search warrant issued by the police to Google. The case involves a massive invasion of Google users’ privacy, and unless the lower court’s ruling is overturned, it could be applied to any user using any search engine.

“Keyword search warrants are totally incompatible with constitutional protections for privacy and freedom of speech and expression,” said EFF Surveillance Litigation Director Andrew Crocker. “All keyword warrants—which target our speech when we seek information on a search engine—have the potential to implicate innocent people who just happen to be searching for something an officer believes is somehow linked to a crime. Dragnet warrants that target speech simply have no place in a democracy.”"

#privacy

I see people comparing ideas for "AI assistants" to Clippy, lol.

https://qoto.org/@olives/111621216456534863 I covered it a few weeks ago here. #vppa

Like ISPs who wanted to be able to sell (and share) user data, #Patreon is arguing their "free speech rights" are being violated by not being able to share user data with Facebook, due to a federal video privacy law.

It didn't go well for those ISPs in ACA Connects v Frey, so I don't see how it will go well for Patreon. #privacy

I see more people criticizing Patreon for not respecting user privacy (i.e. over them apparently handing user data to Facebook in violation of federal video privacy law).

I see someone saying a Missouri Republican is complaining about sex robots...? No, dolls. Right, dolls. No, not those tiny little things. Those mannequin like things. Because it might vaguely look like a minor. Vague fuzzy language. Anyway... Please. Let me rest. I don't have time for this. You know damn well it's a bad idea, and it violates the 1st and 14th Amendment... By now... Don't you...? All it would do is create a shitshow. A shitshow that just so happens to also be unconstitutional.

https://qoto.org/@olives/111016310514191221 My resources are very limited, and I simply don't have the time to come up with something very processed and fresh. There, you go.

I'm fairly sure this is mentioned in there, but I suppose I should repeat it, curiously, I've seen a legal association make the following argument (in this sort of case) before. If someone is up to evil, then there are other laws which someone can use against them...

https://web.archive.org/web/20240105055451/https://rm.coe.int/0900001680adaf31 Australia wants "observer" status for CoE AI Committee.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240105044108/https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/encryption-in-the-age-of-surveillance

This one is from quite a few months ago, but it flew under the radar, and might be of interest. Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, comments on end-to-end encryption and voices human rights concerns about #chatcontrol. #privacy

Reminder that passing a bill to "punish TikTok" would not only be a violation of the First Amendment, it would also be an unconstitutional bill of attainder. A bill of attainder is a bill where the legislature declares someone (or some group) guilty of some crime, and they pass a bill to punish them for that without a trial. Article 1 Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states "No Bill of attainder or Ex post facto law shall be passed."