Olives @olives@qoto.org
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
They seem to be leaning a lot on "Zuckerberg might be a bit of a jerk", such as focusing on how he cancelled some meeting (presumably, to avoid an unproductive argument), or not answering his emails promptly.
But, this isn't really relevant, other than maybe being embarrassing to FB.
I mean... It's an improvement on the initial suit but unless you believe the government should be able to argue over every detail of how someone runs their business, I'm not really seeing the arguments here.
Last I checked, it wasn't illegal for FB to offer a beauty filter product.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/08/zuckerberg-meta-lawsuit-kids-safety/
What exactly is the "right" level of funding? Right level of funding? Wrong level of funding? I mean, it's easy to say "more funding is good" or the nebulous "more needs to be done". It's hard to argue in a suit someone is evil just because they didn't approve a particular funding request.
"The lawsuit also accuses Zuckerberg of rebuffing calls from his senior leaders to prohibit some beauty filters that might harm the mental health of women and young people."
"might harm the mental health of"
I'm not really a fan of such filters, but that is so nebulous.
"Massachusetts is using the evidence to accuse Meta of making deceptive statements about the safety of its platforms in violation of state law."
Except, a lot of this is very much a matter of opinion. Someone could argue this. Someone could argue that.
One bad faith actor is quite strange. He promotes a LGBT survey (and engages in other periodic lip service). But, if you know anything about him, you'll know he singles out LGBT scientists for harassment, jumps on conservative bandwagons, and has voiced "concern" about anal sex. Lowkey conservative?
Oh, cool, more groups with names we've never heard of before crawling out of the woodwork to lobby for some authoritarian law.
https://www.wired.com/story/chatbot-censorship-china-freedom-house/
"When you ask ChatGPT “What happened in China in 1989?” the bot describes how the Chinese army massacred thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. But ask the same question to Ernie and you get the simple answer that it does not have “relevant information.” That’s because Ernie is an AI chatbot developed by the China-based company Baidu."
I think they're both censorious though.
"A bipartisan collection of privacy-minded lawmakers today announced the introduction of a bill that would reform and restrain the authorities of federal agencies from snooping on American citizens and collecting data without getting a warrant first."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/observation-mission-stresses-key-elements-ola-binis-case-upholding-digital-rights Even if you act in good faith, engaging in some forms of security research can be risky.
https://reclaimthenet.org/signal-finally-tests-usernames-to-replace-phone-numbers Though, it seems that someone still needs a phone number to register.
"Twitter changed their policies so paedophiles could congregate on the platform"
This is QAnon disinformation. It is simply not true, though I didn't expect particularly honest argumentations from a Q gateway mouthpiece.
What actually happened is that Twitter was fairly free speech for many years. Remember, their slogan was that they were the "free speech wing of the free speech party". Well, the CEO said it once to the media (though, Vijaya Gadde seemed to be a bit less free speech).
Sometime in mid-2018 (a time when online platforms were facing greater scrutiny), Twitter erroneously suspended a few accounts (which did not engage in abuse and were just advocating for their own rights). They later reversed those decisions after consulting with 40 or so experts (and someone from Vice Media criticized the decision) in both human rights and even psychology. This all happened over the course of a few months.
What probably did change is that industry implemented more methods for tracking down abuse (though, it also came with a false positive footprint and collateral damage). That's not really related to any of these cases though.
Of course, it could be argued that Twitter was still overly censorious in some ways. Nonetheless, it doesn't make this conspiracy theory any more valid. Sure, we can criticize platforms for being censorious (art historically being one concern of mine), but this can be done without amplifying outright grifters (one appears to be the daughter of a Republican politician) and folk tales.
Just thought I'd comment on it, as a typical bad faith actor mentioned it.
These hero images kind of make him look cool which I suppose is a good thing.
https://reason.com/2023/11/09/he-was-strip-searched-and-jailed-for-criticizing-cops-now-hes-fighting-back-in-court/ "In July 2017, Louisiana woman ...
https://reason.com/2023/11/08/the-town-without-zoning-elects-a-pro-zoning-town-government/ Apparently, zoning is a big deal.
"Civil forfeiture defendants in Indiana have the right to a jury trial, the state's Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week, bolstering basic due process protections for those who have assets seized by law enforcement."
"In July 2017, Louisiana woman Nanette Krentel was shot in the head and left in a burning house. More than two years passed before anyone was arrested. That person, however, wasn't alleged to be the murderer. Rather, the sole arrest related to Krentel's death was that of Jerry Rogers Jr. His crime: criticizing the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office (STPSO) for its slow investigation of the case, which remains unsolved.
Naturally, Rogers sued the department for violating his rights. In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that his lawsuit against Sheriff Randy Smith, Chief Danny Culpeper, and Sgt. Keith Canizaro may proceed, confirming they violated clearly established law when they punished Rogers for his speech."
https://reason.com/2023/11/09/inside-ron-desantis-crackdown-on-drag-shows/
Hey. Ron. First Amendment says hi.
Now, I don't put much stock in "polls" from "think of the children" groups (as they tend to be very flawed), but it's interesting that one showed that the majority of people don't think the chat control laws would actually succeed in preventing abuse (isn't that kind of the point?)
I see there are some people on social media offended about an article in a journal about bestiality. This journal just happens to be a known contrarian journal about controversial ideas. Is this an insult or a compliment to them? It makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Ah, yes, also our "favorite" deviancy "theorist" jumping in to try to suggest they're also child predators, even though those are the cases most likely to be prosecuted (it was also looking at something like a dozen cases), and evidence seems to suggest otherwise. I'm not commenting on the bestiality thing here in particular, I'm just tired of this deviancy "theory" garbage.
"On 8 November 2023, a coalition of six organisations – La Quadrature du Net (LQDN), Access Now, ARTICLE 19, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), European Digital Rights (EDRi) and Wikimedia France – filed a complaint before the French supreme administrative court, the Conseil d’État, against the French decree implementing the Regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online (also known as “TERREG”)."
"Under this regulation, law enforcement authorities in an EU country can order a website, a social media platform or any online service provider which hosts user-generated content to block within one hour any content alleged to be of terrorist nature – across all Member States in the EU. These service providers can also be forced to implement “specific measures” to prevent the publication of terrorist content. These “specific measures” – the choice of which remains at the discretion of the service providers – may include, for example, automated upload filters which scan all content before publication. Such automated systems are unable to take account of the context of the publication and are notoriously prone to errors that result in the censorship of protected speech such as journalism, satire, art, or documentation of human rights abuses."
Taking down the terror regulation (which got surprisingly little attention when it got forced through by France) would be a good start to a less authoritarian Europe.
Well, it's her secret "experts", consulted might be the wrong language here.
Since it's been mentioned that Ylva consulted with these people:
Farid seems to have associations with Microsoft. He behaves very activist. He doesn't consider things like proportionality or privacy.
Stamos is weird. He used to work for FB. He apparently had a fight with management (not over kids), left, and has since been attacking them for anything. That was when his "save the children" rhetoric started. He's slightly better than some others but still doesn't consider proportionality.
C3P (i.e. the Canadian Center) is a very activist group which calls people bad for considering fundamental rights, particularly the concepts of proportionality or privacy. They've been known for finding offense with a picture of a baby (an ordinary baby photo) on a band cover. They seem to have a status similar to NCMEC in Canada.
NCMEC has a weird status. They're nominally a non-profit group, however, I think they're there to avoid constitutional constraints, have special powers, and seem a lot like law enforcement. They're somewhat activist. They don't consider proportionality. One Court of Appeals decided they were a government actor, and possibly, even a government agency.
We know Thorn. Founded by Ashton Kutcher, Hollywood actor and investor in AI firms. He stands to gain financially from pitching AI as a solution for everything.
Microsoft and Google aren't really companies known for standing up for your fundamental rights, though they have pushed back against extreme proposals in the past. I suspect they're not hostile to E2EE but I have serious doubts they're that eager about freedom of expression or privacy.
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
