Olives @olives@qoto.org

Not a worry in relation to that activity, a worry in general, if that isn't clear.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-18/lapd-taser-police-brutality-documentarian More on this here.

https://reason.com/2023/07/20/he-caught-a-burglar-in-the-act-but-when-police-came-he-says-they-tased-him-instead-of-the-intruder/ Police tase owner of house instead of burglar.

https://reason.com/2023/07/20/brickbat-barking-orders/ Another cop shoots and kills a dog for approaching him.

https://reason.com/2023/07/19/tennessee-public-school-sued-after-suspending-a-student-over-instagram-memes/ High school sued for violating First Amendment for suspending student for making fun of principal on Instagram.

https://reclaimthenet.org/michelle-rowland-tries-to-justify-new-censorship-law Misinformation is a very vague and nebulous term.

They usually go on about a "thousand cases in ten years", although they usually leave out the time range and instead opt to say "a thousand cases".

That's around a hundred a year.

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/02/war-crimes-youtube-facebook-syria-rohingya/ Remember this?

Would Bluesky's prohibition of "excessively violent content" cover war photos?

Yes, probably over a hundred, well, according to them.

While, yes, someone probably could arrest a few child predators (defined as someone who actually abuses someone, extortion counted here) by spying on everyone (and they have), the numbers are usually fairly small compared to the inflated statistics.

Something on the order of dozens. Maybe, over a hundred, in around a year. And that's like two billion people on a platform.

That's the number the advocates of authoritarianism come up with.

How many murders are there in a city? Do we search all the houses for corpses?

Looking at what another lobbyist said.

This one is a bit novel. It tries to link "viewing actual child porn" with "abusing someone".

Their argument is that because some people at some "looking for help" place had a worry once they might abuse someone, that we have to assume that every case involves the worst possible people.

Leading from that, they use it to justify spying on everyone, and I'm not going to expound on this fully.

1) We don't typically violate everyone's rights because there are people out there who do bad things.

2) Might. Once. Could. Maybe. What on earth is this language? This makes me more uncertain of this idea, not less.

???

3) Perhaps, this place disproportionately represents people with such insecurities (whether reasonable or not)?

Rationally speaking, someone is really going out of their way to go to some place marketed at criminals?

Frankly, it's not very relevant because 1). Also, we're not talking about this group here, we're talking about distribution...? Where does this come into it?

???

This is very confusing.

If they're going for a "predators everywhere" argument.

The predators people are most afraid of tend to put a lot of time and resources into their abuses.

This isn't really people with a "worry" or a "might".

"KOSA has laudable goals, but it also presents significant unintended consequences that"
I don't have such a high opinion of this piece of legislation. It's a terrible bill and it should have died years ago.

It's a pound the table and scream to fix a problem bill. It's not workable. It has many negative consequences. It might even be counter-productive in some or all aspects.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/20/marylands-top-court-calls-bullshit-on-ballistic-forensics/ Questionable ballistics science.

https://reclaimthenet.org/cruz-klobuchar-privacy-amendment What do you think? Recipe for over-reach?

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/21/apple-says-it-will-exit-the-uk-market-if-government-passes-update-to-investigatory-powers-act/ Of course they would, that sounds completely unworkable.

To be fair to Mastodon, even though the "main" instance might be more restrictive than Bluesky, it's not as if they pretend it's the end all and be all, and it isn't the only instance.

I suppose I'm the first to point out Bluesky's Q dog-whistles? Or one of the first?

I took a closer look at Bluesky. The good, the bad, the ugly.

I'll get the good out of the way first, because the rest is not going to be so pleasant.

It doesn't appear to be purely puritanical. I shouldn't be having to pat a techbro on the back for being scared of sex. Unfortunately, I do.

Some of these terms appear inspired by... QAnon, and are very vague... And suspicious.

This is a big red flag. Rather unsurprising, given that Jack Dorsey interacts with and promotes very right wing figures.

As for hate speech, Bluesky also seems not to like that, and while you might not like hate speech, it's another case where some techbro has decided what to and what not to allow based on his personal whims.

Hate speech is also very vague. Is a joke "hate speech"? Or language lacking hateful intent? What about minor cases against more major cases? Is it proportionate? How much time will they spend chasing these?

How do they moderate these at scale? Also, are some topics off limits because they might result in more hate?

While Bluesky tries to point to federation to side-step these tricky questions a centralized platform might have to answer, they fundamentally can't.

It is not federated. No number of promises about how federation will be added in the future will change the fact it is not federated.

It is questionable whether it will be. If the possibility of someone picking an offensive username is a "scandal", how would they react, if there was federation?

Bluesky tries to bury you in technobabble, crypto jargon, and vague promises. Since the founder is a cryptobro, this is not so surprising.

This doesn't change the fundamentally weak value proposition it currently offers. If this was 2021 or 2022, the value proposition would be even weaker.

The problem with Bluesky isn't this random irrelevant design decision which might allow someone to pick a username which is offensive.

It is essentially another Threads. Another closed platform. This time with an air of exclusivity like the failed social network, Clubhouse.

We pretend it is something novel, because it was founded by a drug toting techbro who goes on meditative retreats, and because we have vague promises of "federation" and "crypto magic".

This whole project is a distraction.