Olives @olives@qoto.org

"ECLAG". Another "think of the children" group crawling out of thin air. Many of them are not E.U. based groups, despite trying to influence E.U. legislation through this group.

According to their website, they're comprised of Thorn (a scanning software selling firm), the IWF (a conservative group which is seemingly friends with the British Conservative Party), Brave (funded by the Oak Foundation), ECPAT (1) (known for signing the same letter supporting mass surveillance something like 50 times), and a couple of unknown groups.

The IWF is best known for blocking Wikipedia a decade ago for a few days. This was over a very obscure page containing an image of a naked child from the 70s. This image appears to have been a band cover for an German album (not to be confused with the band cover a Canadian group dislikes) which is commonly available in physical British stores.

It appears to be protected by the First Amendment. Even if it was problematic content, it would still have been grossly disproportionate to do what they did. They withdrew the block, though explicitly refused to say that they were wrong, and came up with a flimsy face saving excuse for withdrawing it, after accruing sufficient public scrutiny. What's so striking here isn't just that they did it, and withdrew it, it is the absolute lack of a modicum of responsibility or accountability from them.

Records indicate the IWF also appeared involved in lobbying the British Government to ban some forms of porn they consider "obscene", both historically (over a decade ago) and seemingly more recently. A bad idea (2,3). It seems they operate illegally (4).

Also, why is such a group trying to influence legislation in the European Union...?

1 https://qoto.org/@olives/111390296356122739

2 https://qoto.org/@olives/111413137710570303

3 https://qoto.org/@olives/111191543236620885

4 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.08958

Not that I particularly like those, but that would be a pretty extreme thing to do.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/FEMM/AD/2023/11-13/1288754EN.pdf I hope they won't accidentally end up banning sexist / hateful jokes.

There is this strange fantasy that a company is the one to go above and beyond in protecting free expression, but in the real world, it's companies who suppress free expression on very frivolous grounds, and it is up to the user to fight the company. #chatcontrol

Strong warning that "risk assessments" are an extremely dangerous passive censorship tool. Mandatory ones should be deleted.

1) Companies (and honestly, even the government) are very bad at quantifying risk. An "assessment" is also evidence which can be twisted against them, either in the court of public opinion, a real court, or somewhere else. Also, even if a company tries to be proportionate (or rights respective), the apparent fact they passed over "some apparent risk" can be twisted against them to achieve clearly authoritarian ends.

2) Companies (and government) are uniquely susceptible to any group (and their ideas) who brand themselves as "anti-exploitation". They might have very weird motivations (such as religious ones) or pursue various brands of hearsay.

3) It allows lawmakers to wash their hands of explicitly demanding various modes of censorship, even if that is what they practically expect.

#chatcontrol

"At least one in five children falls victim to sexual violence during childhood"

Extremely dubious propaganda.

It also doesn't appear to have a citation (if there is a citation, it is to a page which makes an assertion). It is simply asserted (as seems to often be the case). It's unclear if it is remotely true, or what context is behind it.

#chatcontrol

Also, remember this.

Of course, the Commission which failed to disclose their "list" for #chatcontrol also fails to disclose a list for #eidas.

It also looks pretty fringe. Pretty fringe. And adds diversity.

I don't really understand people who think about that last one.

I don't know what could be accomplished by punting people who don't really want to be there there.

https://nichegamer.com/social-media-users-whine-about-terrorism-in-grand-theft-auto/ I see there are Twitter trolls learning from 00s conservative moral panics.

"patented designs, algorithms"

Would it make a difference if the designs and algorithms were not patented?

https://nichegamer.com/microsoft-and-epic-games-hit-with-video-game-addiction-lawsuit/ America, the land of silly frivolous lawsuits.

Yes, though many of the people who were consulted are very authoritarian / activist in favor of mass surveillance / censorship. So, there is already an obvious slant there.

The sort of people who don't care for your rights, and see them as an obstacle, are highly disproportionate, and don't care for the downsides of this.

So, yes, she probably picked out the bits to justify her proposal, but it also seems like a very authoritarian group, to begin with. #chatcontrol

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/15/steamed-hams-except-its-the-eu-commissions-alleged-csam-regulation-experts/

"The Commission has always claimed its anti-encryption, pro-client-side scanning stance is backed by sound advice given to it by the experts it has consulted."

"In other words, the EU took what it liked and included it. The rest of it disappeared from the permanent record, supposedly because the EU Commission routinely purges any email communications more than two years old. This is obviously ridiculous in this context, considering this particular piece of legislation has been under discussion for far longer than that.

But, in the end, the EU Commission wins because it’s the larger bureaucracy. The ombudsman refused to issue a recommendation. Instead, it instructs the Commission to treat the ICCL’s request as “new” and perform another search for documents. “Swiftly.” Great, as far as that goes. But it doesn’t go far. The ombudsman also says it believes the EU Commission when it says only its version of the EUIF report survived the periodic document cull.

In the end, all that survives is this: the EU consulted with affected entities. It asked them to comment on the proposal. It folded those comments into its presentation. It likely presented only comments that supported its efforts. Dissenting opinions were auto-culled by EU Commission email protocols. It never sought further input, despite having passed the two-year mark without having converted the proposal into law. All that’s left, the ombudsman says, is likely a one-sided version of the Commission’s proposal. And if the ICCL doesn’t like it, well… it will have to find some other way to argue with the “experts” the Commission either ignored or auto-deleted. The government wins, even without winning arguments. Go figure."

#chatcontrol

You must not have one of your researchers allegedly* experiment on minors 70 years ago, we will punish you very harshly for that forever.

If you're driving them to suicide with fringe religious therapies today, that is perfectly okay.

*Seems to have been debunked.

#Kinsey / #KinseyInstitute

https://reclaimthenet.org/nikki-haley-demands-an-end-to-online-anonymity
This would be a clear violation of the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects anonymous speech (and rightly so).

Anonymity is important for free expression, and activism.

https://qoto.org/@olives/111407938871651520
I've covered why "age verification" (which is similar to this) is problematic here. The arguments there also apply here. As I've mentioned elsewhere, scammers are also known to impersonate "age verification" providers.

"The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression. Mandatory ID verification on social media could be seen as a form of censorship, limiting individuals’ ability to speak freely online. Historically, the Supreme Court has been protective of anonymous speech as a vital part of the freedom of expression, as seen in cases like Talley v. California (1960) and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995). These cases underscore the right to distribute anonymous literature and the protection of anonymous speech, respectively."

"Related to the First Amendment, there’s a historical precedent for the right to anonymity in political speech. In the Federalist Papers, for example, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote under the pseudonym “Publius” to argue for the ratification of the Constitution itself. Without the right to anonymity, there would be no America as we know it."

#privacy

"If it was Australia" Well, it's still a useful one to have in there, just in case.