Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/29/political-interference-australian-research-council-grants-stopped Hmm... So, the Minister decided what research got funded then.

I'm still not happy with him for playing down the negative implications (for free expression and privacy) of the chat control "compromise".

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/european-health-data-space-eu-committees-vote-in-favour-of-mandatory-interconnected-electronic-patient-records-for-all-citizens/

I'm surprised this has gotten so little attention (other than the EDRi's one post). This is really important and sensitive information. This is not okay. #privacy #edhs

https://reason.com/2023/11/28/two-15-year-sentences-illustrate-the-ugly-interaction-of-drug-and-gun-laws/ Mandatory minimums rearing their ugly heads again. Also, drug war related injustices.

https://reason.com/2023/11/28/prosecutors-use-lyrics-diary-entries-as-evidence-in-georgia-rico-cases/

"After Williams' indictment, numerous music industry stakeholders—including Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Universal Music Group, as well as organizations like SoundCloud, Spotify, and the American Civil Liberties Union, plus multiple legal scholars and musicians—signed an open letter calling for an end to the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials. The signatories called the practice "un-American and simply wrong," constituting "an obvious disregard for free speech and creative expression protected by the First Amendment.""

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/victorian-government-open-to-discussing-decriminalising-cannabis-use-20231129-p5enl4.html Legalizing cannabis would be a good idea.

When I next update this, I might add that there are other forms of conflation too (i.e. conflating sexy with non-sexy).

Maybe, also improve on the wording of part 2, although it already seems fairly good?

I think it's kind of the "commenting on a claim" vs "a rule which can apply to many claims", otherwise I end up spending a lot of time redundantly commenting on things.

I have an inner perfectionist which tells me that I should improve on this. When I review it though, it seems pretty good.

Facebook. That company with a horrid record on privacy and whose very founder called his users "dumb f-cks" for giving him their data.

As mentioned before, there are also questions of due process, freedom of expression, and privacy. A cartel means that stupid ideas (or systemic bias / mistakes) have a tendency of being amplified.

That is my "human rights analysis" from a more critical angle.

It is unclear what the scope of this platform is at all, indeed, rather vague language is used, and you are supposed to just assume it is used against "bad things". However, there is (still rather tortured) language which contradicts this narrative in some areas.

The information sharing platform also appears to be operated by Facebook which means that not small amounts of personal information are likely to be non-consensually processed by Facebook (even if you don't use any of their services).

One of the most glaring parts of it, apart from just being very underwhelming, is that it assumes that these platforms are well-behaved actors (and not actors who overwhelmingly act on frivolous grounds). They're not.

It fails to properly challenge these platforms, indeed, it doesn't seem to operate from that angle at all.

"They also appeared to be funding reports to justify it."

The "human rights analyses" they use to justify it substantially underplay the potential harmfulness of it.

Nice to know that Julie's site also breaks crawlers... Ugh.

"Now @MarietjeSchaake D66 - I thought she was a good MP and MEP at the time, but can hardly believe she hasn't spoken out about the EU's Orwellian chat control plans."

Well, go contact her (and anyone else for that matter) then. Politicians can be fairly unreliable.