Olives @olives@qoto.org

I feel like I'm trapped in Hell with how these stupid authoritarian ideas keep getting advanced...

It's annoying when someone only talks about "reducing risk", even as such attempts have negative impacts on fairly good people.

I've covered this a couple of times, but I never went into how creepy and opportunistic it was for IJM (International Justice Mission) to show up during #chatcontrol. As you might expect from a religious group (accused of having a history of exaggerating rates of sex trafficking (1) and being anti sex work) trying to get a foot in the door, they tried to conflate legitimate content with abuse (2).

For instance, they wanted to treat things like "written text" as "child porn". In practice, this would mean censoring things like stories written by victims / survivors (preferred term varies), literature, roleplay, fantasy, and so on. It also appears to have therapeutic value.

They also pointed to a "terminology guideline", which seems to really be a puritanical propaganda doc (a hideously out of touch one) intended to encourage countries to adopt extreme and harmful definitions (i.e. child not meaning an actual real child), which would be harmful (3,4). It's one of the most sinister things I've seen.

1 https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html
2 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
3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111083302650803082
4 https://qoto.org/@olives/111192296198968801

https://qoto.org/@olives/111321512784243641 The new paper linking a lack of independent activity without monitoring / control to depression / suicidal ideation might be of interest to the #chatcontrol crowd.

https://edri.org/our-work/eu-cyber-resilience-act-harm-open-source-software-competitiveness/ This is interesting.

https://reason.com/2023/10/30/desantis-wants-to-reduce-mass-shootings-by-locking-more-people-in-mental-hospitals/

"In the wake of a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed 18 people, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for more involuntary institutionalization."

"Yet involuntary institutionalization isn't likely to help either. Indeed, making it easier to toss people into mental institutions against their will raises even greater concerns for due process."

""A 2017 task force report on the involuntary referrals of children under Florida's Baker Act found that one-third of them were not necessary," according to a recent article by Kaitlin Gibbs of the University of Florida Levin College of Law. "Many children are Baker Acted more than once, which shows the initial Baker Act may not have successfully treated children with mental illness. At least thirty percent of all children Baker Acted will have a repeat Baker Act within five years.""

"Nor is throwing people into mental wards likely to reduce the number of mass shootings. As Ragy Girgis, a clinical psychiatrist at Columbia University, wrote in 2022, "Serious mental illness—specifically psychosis—is not a key factor in most mass shootings or other types of mass murder." And while 25 percent of mass shootings "are associated with non-psychotic psychiatric or neurological illnesses, including depression," he notes that "in most cases these conditions are incidental.""

"If DeSantis' plan were enacted, the likely result would be a rapid increase in the unnecessary institutionalization of mentally ill individuals—and a negligible impact on criminal violence. If taking people's guns is a violation of their rights, forcing them into a mental facility surely is too."

"volume" "frequency" Any measures would be very burdensome for a provider (and could even be used in a harassing manner on a flimsy basis).

Even more so when there are multiple layers of providers involved, as this can incur great technical obstacles.

That's sort of a guardrail, though not a perfect one.

It looks like the usual authoritarians who want to control the Internet are now hiring minors to say good things about their ideology... Ugh.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/30/julian-assanges-brother-urges-anthony-albanese-to-up-the-ante-over-wikileaks-founders-case Do you remember Assange?

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/31/hundreds-of-millions-of-australian-identity-checks-may-have-been-illegally-conducted-senate-hears

"Hundreds of millions of identity checks under the federal government’s ID verification service may have been illegally conducted, with the Albanese government rushing through legislation to underpin the service.

Identity verification services are used by government departments and businesses – such as credit card providers and power companies – to combat fraud and identity theft.

Legislation to allow the identity verification service was abandoned by the former Morrison government in 2019 after the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security recommended it be redrafted over concerns there were insufficient privacy safeguards for the proposal.

However, the service began operating and, four years on, the Albanese government has pushed through new legislation in the House of Representatives. It is now under review in the Senate."

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/28/instagram-palestinian-flag-emoji/ This is kind of inevitable when someone is just demanding platforms to "do more".

https://www.stopfinancialsurveillance.org/

"Two years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed amidst backlash from the public, the US Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are proposing regulation for its implementation that would mandate mass surveillance of digital assets. This is likely unconstitutional and would be a massive blow to human rights.

We have until November 14 to speak out on the danger of this proposed rule."

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2023/10/30/british-police-testing-women-for-abortion-drugs/ Huh, I didn't think the U.K. was *that* kind of country.

Also, looking back, television was actually really bad for free expression. I don't think you realize quite how much censorship goes into it (unless, you're a censorship wonk like me who spends a fair bit of time looking into it). It would be very stifling and very unpleasant.

Some of the takes from the worst people can be pretty crazy. For instance, at times, one practically suggested they wanted a fully moderated social network (both economically and practically impossible). That you could have mods watching every video. Every livestream. To make sure no one is doing anything improper. Just like the "days of television". If they couldn't do that, the site deserved to just be shut down. It's too risky.

"Ylva can't be allowed to get away with this."

I think she is another case where she knows very well what she's doing. She doesn't really care about your rights, and wants to achieve whatever aims she wants to.

She will mislead, outright lie, strategically ignore, and "keep happening upon" things which "appear" to support her (but are quite dubious and bad faith in their own ways.

Someone asked whether she is evil or stupid, but if you treat her as if she is merely stupid, she is going to take you for a ride, as will similar kinds of people.

And yes, you can't let her get away with using these kinds of antics. She's not the worst actor. Some of these shills / lobbyists are worse than she is, however, she is the bad actor with the most power.

I also wonder what'll happen after Ylva retires as commissioner. Is she going to appear on the board of a government backed lobby group? The revolving door kind of is a thing.

The usual suspects are either ignoring (or haven't noticed, though that might be giving them too much credit) this study which would appear to question whether control is a good thing.