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techcentral.co.za/south-africa

"In early 2021, the constitutional court found that the country’s State Security Agency, through its signals intelligence agency, the National Communication Centre, was conducting bulk interception of electronic signals unlawfully."

"The court found that there was no law authorising the practice of bulk surveillance and limiting its potential abuse. It ordered that the agency cease such surveillance until there was.

In November 2023, the South African presidency responded to the ruling by tabling a bill to, among other things, plug the gaps identified by the country’s highest court. The General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill sets out how the surveillance centre, based in Pretoria, should be regulated."

"In the case of South Africa, around 2005, rogue agents in the erstwhile National Intelligence Agency misused bulk interception to spy on senior members of the ANC, the opposition, business people and civil servants. This was despite the agency’s mandate being to focus on foreign threats."

If they evolve their policies (i.e. fix the weird Q stuff), then I might give it more credit as a Silicon Valley powered Twitter lookalike. I still won't pretend it is federated, or some "open" thing, because it isn't.

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There is the theoretical benefit that Bluesky might be less subject to the whims of one admin after it "decentralizes". However, currently it very much *is* subject to the whims of one admin (well, whoever works at that company).

The British Government can also be fairly "our problem is your problem". Like, in a case, where they complained about how cops supposedly historically called victims liars when they went to them.

Hang on, *you* are the ones who did this, what does it have to do with anyone else.

@freemo @SpaceLifeForm @jerry @paco Hmm... Well, first off, I don't know a whole lot about this case. Seeing a bit of the discourse made me think of a few things though.

For starters, while "local servers" "sound" cool, once an Internet hostile country like the U.K. comes into the picture, it is far more uncool. Federation only really works well among people who actually believe in it for one. Even .art appears to be run by someone living there. Also, a few people there can be nosy, particularly about things which don't matter.

At first glance, it isn't obvious this server is run out of there, as it uses a .com domain. In fact, I was not aware of this, until I noticed the *other instance* he operates during the dispute between you and him.

Didn't the United States fight a revolution to escape from the control of the British crown?

He also seems more evasive than a liar.

@freemo @SpaceLifeForm @jerry @paco From where I'm standing, you appear to have a personal dispute with Mr. Wild about his moderation practices.

And now, Mr. Wild is misrepresenting an outdated stack, or some other thing, perhaps, even his own personal confusion, as some kind of vague smoking gun devoid of context to drag other admins into it.

Not a good look.

HOA and admin drama rearing it's ugly head again.

Olives boosted

Alright, let's say it. The Church of Scientology is a cult.

Olives  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU Rowan Atkinson (who plays Mr. Bean) talks about the importance of free expression.

edri.org/our-work/health-digit

"13 organisations and trade unions representing patients, medical professionals, persons with disabilities, consumer and digital rights, are urging the Council of the EU to uphold European patients’ fundamental rights and agree on the right for opting out of the primary and, in particular, secondary use of medical records in the European Health Data Space (EHDS) for all people in the EU."

Frankly, an opt-out doesn't go far enough, it should be an opt-in, although I understand they're trying to stop it getting even worse.

Olives boosted

sciencedirect.com/science/arti

"Changes in arrests following decriminalization of low-level drug possession in Oregon and Washington"

"We obtained arrest data for 2019 to 2021 for intervention states (Oregon and Washington) and control states (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada). We calculated monthly rates for arrests overall and for violent crimes, drug possession, equipment possession, non-drug crimes, and a set of low-level crimes termed displaced arrests."

"There were no significant changes in overall arrests, non-drug arrests or arrests for violent crime in either state, relative to controls."

Olives boosted

I imagine attacking "violent porn" would probably wind up attacking BDSM, and maybe, even animated violence, even though that is probably not what someone is thinking of when saying that.

Also, there was one which coded "taboo themes" (i.e. I guess incest) as "violence", even though it's not really what would come to mind when someone says "violence" either. Also, someone almost certainly doesn't want to go and actually do that...

There was also a researcher who pointed out that anything which could be construed as "violence" would (i.e. spanking) by someone with a bone to grind.

Olives boosted

youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZyg Rowan Atkinson (who plays Mr. Bean) talks about the importance of free expression.

Olives boosted

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions

"The Government is sneaking in new powers to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud and error.

It will force banks to flag people who meet secret criteria to the government."

Checking, and yup, Dr. Ferguson is still sceptical of the moral panic surrounding minors and social media.

@echo_pbreyer Hmm... She seems to overwhelmingly focus on "content" type policies for "evolving technologies", rather than focusing on someone's "conduct" (i.e. sextortion, harassment), which probably means you're going to wind up getting more broad brush "solutions" which tend to impinge on human rights.

Also, the focus on words like "real or realistic" reminds me a bit of how a few articles about such artificial content included mentioning depictions of "non-existent people", and also, where even the meaning of "realistic" could be variable. Prohibiting possession of such content would also likely be a privacy issue. Someone is not going to typically be evil for the sake of being evil.

This reminds me a lot of the "War on Drugs" where civil rights were routinely violated and a lot of resources were poured into it. Legalizing possession of drugs didn't even lead to what was claimed it would[1]. I also don't think that just locking more and more people up indiscriminately is a sustainable, proportionate, or even effective thing to do.

1 sciencedirect.com/science/arti

9to5mac.com/2024/02/08/ios-17- Apple nerfing web apps on iPhones in the E.U. It goes without saying that this is a bad idea.

adding 1 to 1 is super problematic

André Klein  
Goody2, an AI "so safe, it won't answer anything" - anything at all - "that could possibly be construed as controversial or problematic" - https://...
Olives boosted
Olives boosted

Goody2, an AI "so safe, it won't answer anything" - anything at all - "that could possibly be construed as controversial or problematic" - goody2.ai/chat #ai #ethics #parody #chatbot

Olives boosted

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