Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20539517241252129
"Mandatory age verification for pornography access: Why it can't and won't ‘save the children’"
Interesting piece.

I'm not going to write a dedicated post just because a fringe (and increasingly fringe) weirdo from NSW has a weird dislike for porn.

Instead, I will point to my previous posts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/28/taiwan-china-same-sex-gay-marriage-rules Also seems to require someone to carry out cross-strait marriages in mainland China where they might be arrested for things like arguing that Taiwan should be independent.

If you are in a conversation with me, please don't say really vague things to me, and expect me to figure out what you are talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States By the way, computer code is speech protected by the First Amendment.

It's fascinating seeing people writing about how moderators should not review hits for some (flaky) algorithm and to instead immediately report someone to the police. This is a bad idea which pops up quite a few times.

Remember that "safety by design" *does not mean anything*. Someone can't objectively point to something and say that that is the "right" or "wrong" thing to do, and it would probably be impossible to, because moderation and the like are inherently subjective.

It is more a form of political rhetoric. In fact, I think that things like this are a *distraction* and lower the quality of the discourse.

It operates a lot like a company (also, Ashton owns AI stock and they push a strong techno-solutionist view, even when it comes off as ridiculous / is irrelevant).

https://reason.com/2017/02/15/ashton-kutcher-plays-sex-worker-savior/ Remember that Thorn is a company which has a history of making things up to promote themselves (their "products" appear to be of questionable quality).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censorship_in_China "harmonizing" Ironically, one of the euphemisms which someone used when advocating for censorship was the very same euphemism which is used for censorship in China.

It's a slightly more sophisticated (although obtuse) way of telling someone to "do something", and then, they do "something" and that "something" is completely unreasonable.

"safety by design" is really just a euphemism for censorship invented by an (unreasonable) politician from a distant foreign country. It's just some political rhetoric which gets thrown around, it doesn't mean anything.

This same politician was upset that Apple wouldn't spy on people back in 2021.

Now, a Canadian "think of the children" outfit accused of telling sites to take down stamps claiming they're child porn, and a British outfit which is largely about censoring porn, and conflating it with abuse, are crawling out of the woodwork to offer to "help", in response to a situation where people are eager to jump to conclusions (particularly about what might happen).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/27/germany-mainstream-politicians-far-right-afd I remember that the FDP campaigned against censorship then when they were elected in 2021 (in coalition so it might involve some sort of compromise), whenever one of their ministers, Marco Buschmann would be mentioned internationally, it would involve him clumsily trying to defend some sort of censorship (or defending privacy, which is a good thing). Some of the censorship came off as silly.

As for the 5% threshold, I remember that they raised it not that long ago, and that they were cautioned against doing so...

To win over voters though (a number of voters simply might not vote, rather than shifting to another party), these parties might have to show that the economy will get better.

"rewarding time spent on the platform"
Does a level system in a video game count as "rewarding"? What about achievements? What about a forum system with elements of achievements and likes (i.e. Discourse)? What about levels and achievements on Steam?

How would someone distinguish those cases from other cases?

The fediverse has likes (but no achievements, although it wouldn't be hard for someone to implement such a system, and I could see someone doing it for fun), is that rewarding someone?

That is the problem with vague demands as to what "platforms" should do.

The anti prostitution article comes off as condescending, and largely attacks a strawman rather than what people who call for decriminalization of such actually say.

Take the example of derisively referring to a nebulous "pimp lobby", what they actually mean are sex workers, academics, and others who argue that such prohibitions are harmful.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/aug/24/were-not-as-open-about-sex-as-we-imagine-gillian-anderson-on-pleasure-powerful-women-and-collecting-secret-fantasies
A better article than the one where someone with a peculiar form of conservative views is there to tell you about how much she hates prostitution.

https://sexpo.fi/kannanotto/sexpon-tavoitteet-europarlamentaarikkojen-tyohon/
It looks like Sexpo (not the convention) wrote a blog post addressing the European Parliament. It covers:

Abortion rights.

Something about family life.

Something about sexual freedom. They like that.

Access to quality education.