Olives @olives@qoto.org

I don't know how well hashtags work on fediverse. Here's one for #OnlineSafetyBill.

It'd be cool if Mastodon implemented the ability to schedule posts.

https://pen.org/press-release/pen-america-responds-to-defunding-of-kinsey-institute-as-another-alarming-step-in-effort-to-exert-political-control-over-higher-education/ Republican Indiana House votes to defund #Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.

Writing to your MEPs, writing to your national governments, and getting others to do so as well would greatly assist in taking down this bill.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/01/twitter-abruptly-stops-reporting-on-govt-requests-as-data-reveals-elon-obeys-govt-demands-way-more-often-than-old-twitter/ Old Twitter was bad. New Twitter bows to government requests far more.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/internet-dodges-censorship-supreme-court U.S. Supreme Court declines to censor the Internet by uprooting a foundational law protecting freedom of expression and innovation, Section 230.

The War of Drugs. A war which never ceases to find novel ways to violate your rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJUXLqNHCaI
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep45154.12
https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/21/customs-agents-local-doctor-subject-18-year-old-to-vaginal-rectal-probing-search-nonexistent-drugs/
https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/13/new-hampshire-aclu-fighting-back-against-deas-warrantless-access-to-sensitive-medical-records/
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/09/03/appeals-court-says-address-mistakes-warrants-are-mostly-harmless-not-worth-getting-excited-about/
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/10/texas-swat-team-destroys-home-while-searching-for-the-wrong-person-at-the-wrong-address/
Not satisfied with how over-zealous drug enforcement has been an instrument for civil rights violations, lawmakers have concocted a new way to violate your rights...

Introducing the Cooper Davis Act.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/your-messaging-service-should-not-be-dea-informant
This bill would hold platforms liable if they were to fail to report illegal drug sales which they should have "reasonably known about".

For practical purposes, it'd likely lead to platforms making reports in any situation which vaguely refers to drugs, past drug usage, or treatment, thereby violating the First Amendment rights of those concerned.

It's not clear it'd have an impact on drug sales. War on Drugs type tactics never really do.

https://qoto.org/@olives/110381983321917791
https://qoto.org/@olives/110381282015846145
https://qoto.org/@olives/110383293176711628
Like with bills, it's likely this bill would be further expanded to encompass even more things.

https://edri.org/our-work/commissioner-johansson-cannot-be-trusted-with-the-eus-proposed-csa-regulation/
Also, while the "CSAM reporting scheme" might not be as harmful as this bill, even that bill has led to people being falsely accused of being child predators by platforms.

We should be sceptical of plans to expand that as well.

Good morning, Britain.

Might I draw your attention to an awfully dreadful instrument of repression which is making it's way through Westminister?

That is the OSB.

Yes. *That* Westminister. That awful place responsible for getting people arrested for protesting against the monarchy, who wanted to put protesters on ankle bracelets, who want to deport illegal migrants to a country with a terrible human rights record, Rwanda, and who passed a bill to give MI5 agents a license to kill and rape.

This deplorable bill throws around a bunch of rosy, and utopian words. Under the surface, however, lies an authoritarian monstrosity, so complex and incoherent, that even the MPs and Lords sitting in Parliament don't fully understand it.

Through a long and rather convoluted structure, this bill enshrines shaming, harassing, and repressing people for their kinks into law, by breathing a breath of fresh air into obscenity laws which haven't played a real role in quite a few years.

Even viewing porn will require you to provide your ID, so criminals can hack the database, or trick you into handing over your ID by imitating the ID provider, to blackmail and extort you. If you have a humiliation kink, rejoice, you are about to be in for a very exciting experience.

This bill also encourages platforms to tackle undefined "risks", which is presumably whatever the government of the day is having a moral panic over, and if they get it wrong, they could face civil liability. That means bye-bye free expression and hello repression.

That's not all. There is also a clause which allows a new government agency to issue notices to companies to bar them from using end-to-end encryption and to spy on all your messages. Just as the Stasi and Big Brother might.

Will it at least make the Internet safer? Oh honey, you think this is to make the Internet safer? This is yet another tool from a bunch of old fossils who could never get past the fact they can't control everything, and who yearn for the days of television and legacy media when no one could whisper a word on a large scale without their say so.

This is only the beginning. Parliament could amend this law at any time, and even have a mechanism to rush through changes with next to no deliberation called statutory instruments. Anytime there is a moral panic over nothing, you will feel an immeasurable amount of pain and frustration.

Alternatively, the Digital and Culture Minister, a figure who is known for being very politically and emotionally motivated, could show up to interfere in social media companies at any time. The person in this role used to be Nadine Dorries. It is now someone slightly better, although still not what you'd call a reasonable person.

Expect every petty partisan matter to be considered. Illegal migration? Expect random photographs of boats on the channel to be censored.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/634725 You can oppose it by signing this petition and writing to MPs / Lords to oppose this abomination and getting as many people as possible to also do this.

https://www.xbiz.com/news/272937/german-police-ramp-up-plan-to-eliminate-all-explicit-content-from-twitter Shocking abuse of power by a minor bureaucrat.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31432547/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31042055/
Nor is it clear porn is having such a dramatically awful effect on minors... That we have to violate people's most basic rights like this.

Don't let facts get in the way of a good moral panic?