Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reason.com/2024/09/09/federal-judge-rules-inmate-death-records-can-remain-secret-because-they-could-embarrass-prison-officials/
"In response to a public records lawsuit filed by the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason, a federal judge has ruled the U.S. government can hide findings about whether people who died in federal prison received adequate medical care, partly out of fear that those records could be used to criticize prison officials."

"The judge wrote that a declaration from a BOP official credibly established that the mortality reviews could be used to "criticize" or "ridicule" the agency."
#HumanRights #Foia

https://reason.com/2024/09/11/texas-court-rejects-last-appeal-for-a-man-set-to-be-executed-based-on-disputed-shaken-baby-syndrome-evidence/
"A #Texas appeals court denied a stay of execution today for Robert Roberson, a death row inmate who is scheduled on October 17 to become the first person in the U.S. to be executed based on disputed "shaken baby syndrome" evidence."

"Medical examiners found a trio of internal head conditions that were, at the time, considered to be conclusive evidence of violent shaking and impacts."

"Roberson's lawyers argued that the scientific understanding of shaken baby syndrome, now called Abusive Head Trauma (AHT), has shifted dramatically since his conviction. His lawyers also said they had uncovered previously undisclosed medical records that proved Roberson's daughter died of severe viral and bacterial pneumonia, not trauma from shaking or abuse."
#HumanRights

Australian federal government declines to criminalize hate speech, although expands laws covering incitement and threats.

Google might be in trouble in the anti-trust case around their ad network. It always seemed to be the stronger of the two cases, between it and the one around search.

I've been reading quite a few papers / articles on sex crimes, and it's interesting how the psychologists repeatedly stress that youths are easier to rehabilitate than adults, and that systems tend to treat them as adults.

"Metro Bus Park Game_3D Games"
I mean this title.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/09/thousands-of-avis-car-rental-customers-had-personal-data-stolen-in-cyberattack/
"Car rental giant Avis is notifying hundreds of thousands of people that their personal information and driver’s license numbers were stolen in an August cyberattack."

"the car rental company said that the stolen information includes customer names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, their date of birth, credit card numbers and expiration dates, and driver’s license numbers"
#privacy

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Soft_tech.DriveLuxuryBusSimulator3D
https://www.refused-classification.com/censorship-timelines/game-iarc/
Australia banned a game where you drive a bus around.

The advisory says it contains sex, although that appears to be erroneous. I don't know if that is related. Even if it was a game about buses and sex (which it doesn't appear to be), that isn't an excuse for censorship. #auspol #FreeSpeech

https://www.wired.com/story/confidant-health-therapy-records-database-exposure/
"Thousands of people’s highly sensitive health details, including audio and video of therapy sessions, were openly accessible on the internet, new research has revealed. The cache of information, associated with a US health care firm, included more than 120,000 files and more than 1.7 million activity logs."
#privacy

"Stop It Now! Australia run by Jesuit Social Services."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_Church

"The Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits, is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome."

You do know what a Jesuit is, right? Sounds faith-based.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1461796
I wouldn't be surprised, if they ended up making someone's problems worse.

Noting that my posts on stigma are in no way intended to suggest that novels or films from decades ago should be censored / modified, or a slight against politically incorrect jokes in fictional media.

Rather than confusing people with phrases like "images of children" (SFW), an academic could just straight-up say it's an AI generated image.

The point I'm making here with the "here's some resources on safe practices" versus something more preachy is that the latter might put someone off (or maybe they'll think it's for someone else).

Let's think of some potential "factors" from a more progressive angle.

"tough on crime" policies which separate parents from their children. That is bad for the mental well-being of their children.

By criminalizing cannabis, there is a higher chance of it containing something extra which might be lethal. Once again, that is surely bad for the mental well-being of their children.

We could go on. These points are politically unpalatable though, particularly the first one.

Even with alcohol, might this not be a coping mechanism? I'm not hearing chatter about mental health services here. Maybe, that is also unpalatable but it is curious how that is uniquely off the table.

The insistent conflation between practices someone might think unwise and abuse also obscures the possibility for sex education, perhaps also for adult populations (i.e. BDSM and other such things). Also, if someone frames any messaging as "anti abuse" or "consent", then someone might well tune that out, as opposed to practicing things safely or something.

#auspol

Guardian Australia is a smaller player in the Australian media ecosystem. Sometimes, they have fresh opinions. They're not always bad. In this case, yes, they are.

While it's tempting to wave it off as "it's just one article" "it's just the Australian branch", it still has a potential to create a headache for me, so I have to address it.

More specifically, Guardian Australia, so the Australian branch of The Guardian.

I wasn't going to comment on him but that is really too much.

The Guardian platforming a far right figure is nothing short of appalling.

Supposedly, awareness programs against sexual violence should not be run, because it might hurt someone's feelings. This point, The Guardian, is more than happy to run.

Then, so-called "vices" are supposedly what someone should see as the "evil", and someone shouldn't worry about anything else. Mental health issues? That might be expensive to fund. Traditionalistic attitudes passed down from parents? Nah. It's a clearly traditionalistic view of the world dressed up in a "neutral" garb.

There is also no point where a misrepresentation is not made. While some points superficially make sense, they also drip with shadowy conspiracies, because it seems no one can disagree with this person without there being a cabal somewhere involved in it.

This very individual has been known to promote conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, and directed harassment against scientists in order to pander to far right individuals. Perhaps, he has better decorum now, that doesn't matter, it's still a disgrace.

The editor who platformed this should take a long and hard look in the mirror.

#auspol

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/04/metas-moderation-board-backs-decision-to-allow-from-the-river-to-the-sea-in-posts It's unknown whether Facebook will actually adopt the recommendation though.