Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/02/texas-robert-roberson-death-penalty-supreme-court-appeal-denied

"A Texas prisoner who is facing execution having been sent to death row on the basis of “shaken baby syndrome”, a child abuse theory that has been widely debunked as junk science, has had his petition to the US supreme court denied."

"At his 2003 trial, Roberson was portrayed by prosecutors as a cold and calculating father who displayed no emotion. After his conviction, though, the inmate was diagnosed with autism which put those qualities in a completely different light."

"Amid mounting concern around the reliability of Roberson’s conviction, prominent individuals have called for a rethink before a possibly innocent man is executed. They include five retired federal judges and 16 current and retired forensic scientists and pediatric doctors."

"The police detective who led the investigation into Nikki’s death has also developed such serious doubts about the reliability of the evidence that he has called for a review of the case. Brian Wharton, who testified for the prosecution at the 2003 trial, told the Guardian that he was “deeply saddened” by the supreme court’s decision not to take the petition."

"hacked accounts being used for sextortion"

This almost makes you miss the days when scammers only used to pose as princes of Nigeria. Well, just remember the scammer doesn't actually know shit, and giving them money will only feed them (it won't help).

Some of this is going to be more general security based stuff because this partially pertains to that.

Secure things / accounts where ever it is possible to do so. Avoid sending sensitive things on public (and less secure) accounts. Communicate with people you know well on private accounts?

I suppose I should also say don't be stupid?

For the online safety thing, if a minor is going to use the Internet, generally, it'd probably be best to do it anonymously, and to leave no connection to their actual identity. Even if they trust someone, there is no particular reason to say more than should be said.

Frankly, I don't like these real identity models (I don't think this was a thing back in the day, or not as much of one). If someone is going to do that though, they should only communicate with someone they actually know, not some random person on the Internet who has appeared out of thin air.

It is also interesting that some of the most censorious platforms, as far as sexual expression is concerned, have some of the biggest problems. It's as if blunt censorship doesn't actually stop predators.

"What's next?"

I think Ylva wanted to do a war on drugs (the existing war on drugs has been deeply corrosive to civil rights and drugs still circulate) next with the chat control.

Andy was also wanting spying on private messages to be used to "fight extremism". So, he's kind of on the side of scope creep.

"real children should be the priority"

While this point sounds good on paper, I don't think "fictional / non-existent children" should be "protected" at all, let alone be merely deprioritized. Perhaps, that is the intent here (and it would jive with other posts), however, this language is ambiguous.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right.

There is no valid argument to the contrary. Even the debunked* "what about criminals?" would be highly disproportionate, even if it were not debunked (and predicated on a form of "guilt by association" which violates due process).

Nothing stops actual criminals from being punished, particularly the worst ones. Most people are not going to be criminals anyway, especially not worse forms of criminal... Indeed, one psychologist noted that crimes in one of these populations were "so rare".

Also, undermining fundamental rights means undermining them for everyone in the long run... There is no such thing as a benign exception here... This has been shown in multiple areas.

* https://qoto.org/@olives/111083302650803082

A poorer (although, well-meaning) argument which I've seen is that "there is no evidence that porn is linked to bad things".

A better argument is that the idea has been thoroughly debunked / discredited (which is true, as shown here).

I don't really like speculating about relations or thoughts, even those of data brokers (or those adjacent to them).

But, it's not as if it's particularly a reach that a data broker might want to rebrand themselves.

Even if they didn't, it's still viewing the world through the lens of top-down management (control), data collection (surveillance), and buddy government (inherent human rights concerns).

Then, stubbornly ignoring fundamental rights concerns / issues.

If I were to give someone the benefit of the doubt (although, circumstances push me away from that), I would caution someone away from Maslow's Hammer.

There is a saying that when all you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Whether it's a "ban", a "regulation", or "surveillance", these are pretty blunt instruments, and not necessarily useful / good.

"It's not 'surveillance' when someone looks at your private messages. It's regulation."

This is paraphrased, by me, but these shills are funny. It very much is.

"they seem to think breaking encryption is a front for data brokers"

It's kind of true. The CRC operates out of the same building as a data broker. It's not hard to imagine this is to safetywash their reputation. That collecting non-consensual data sets on people is really for "the children".

One of the shills I've seen a few times just so happens to come from there.

Also, Ashton just so happens to be a large investor in "AI", and just so happens to be trying to pitch AI as a magical solution for everything elsewhere.

He is also providing a "surveillance based service" to one of his own companies (OpenAI) to make them look more "socially responsible" (at a time when they're under increasing scrutiny for unrelated reasons).

Clearview is also kind of a thing, and some of these "think of the children" people were also supporting that.

Clearview is a data broker which creates non-consensual data sets of people. They've also allowed their services to be used for non law enforcement purposes (as if there wasn't enough room for over-reach there).

Even when it's not all directly data broker related, they're still selling the idea of surveillance actually being a "good thing".

By the way, while the religious IJM casually cites "terminology guidelines" here, this document (from 2016) resembles more of a propagandistic lobbying manifesto than terminology guidelines.

It tries to encourage states to interpret terms like child in child porn legislation in an alarmingly broad manner, mingling reality with fiction.

It directly conflates reality and fiction, even giving explicit examples of fiction which they disapprove of, it concern trolls with extremely rare "possibilities", and disseminates propagandistic language which someone can utilize to conflate reality and fiction.

At one point, it even tries to suggest the Lanzarote Convention, which explicitly has a "non-existent children are not covered" clause (and they admitted as such), was supportive of their ideology.

The dedicated domain for this document appears to have expired in late 2022 / early 2023.

This is not even directly mentioned in IJM's submission. They just wink at it with "the guidelines". Very sneaky. Deeply sinister.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/get-real-congress-censoring-search-results-or-recommendations-still-censorship EFF talking about KOSA.

Did you know the religious group International Justice Mission (IJM) tried to get the E.U. to criminalize written text as "child porn" via the controversial chat control?

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12726-Fighting-child-sexual-abuse-detection-removal-and-reporting-of-illegal-content-online/F3337815_en
"written story" Very sneaky term slipped in.

It's not hard to imagine such a thing targeting fictional literature, roleplay, fantasy, and even someone talking about an event which happened to themselves.

It's simply spitting in the face of fundamental rights.

Remember when Zoom and Dropbox lied about using E2EE? Something that is nice about it is that it's provably secure.

https://www.wired.com/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/
https://wersm.com/zoom-does-not-actually-support-e2e-encryption-for-video-meetings/

If Facebook was going to exploit Whatsapp or similar to make money btw (other than putting in regular ads, sponsored posts, and business accounts), they probably wouldn't directly break the E2EE, they would mine the metadata, which they're already marketing as a tool for "fighting abuse".

Then, they could sell the idea of protecting the confidentiality of your messages. In a chat called puppies? Alright, so we know you like puppies. Didn't break the E2EE.