Olives @olives@qoto.org

One cited commentator is "Ken White" (who used to work for the federal government, if he still doesn't do so) who nods along with his comments there, and whose sole contribution to the discussion point of Biden giving clemency for people who possessed drugs, was reckoning that they might be drug dealers.

The biggest problem though, is that when it comes to free speech, the government usually is the problem, the people looking to censor people, and who're perched up high.

So, this doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me as far as possible commentators go.

But, again, I'm seeing the usual antics from Mike to avoid making any sort of commentary on over-reach. Indeed, he mentions sex as an example (to point out hypocrisy), but then, you don't see him rolling his eyes at platforms for being sex averse (something which the EFF, at one point, actually did). So, it's purely invoking this for the purposes of attacking a platform for platforming particular speech he doesn't like.

https://reason.com/2024/01/09/study-estimates-roadside-drug-tests-result-in-30000-wrongful-arrests-every-year/

"These inexpensive field tests use color reactions to indicate the presence of compounds found in certain drugs. However, the well-documented problem is that the compounds these kits test for are not exclusive to illicit drugs and are, in fact, found in dozens of legal substances. Over the years, officers have arrested and jailed innocent people after drug field kits returned presumptive positive results on bird poop, donut glaze, cotton candy, and sand from inside a stress ball. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in Florida stopped using test kits this September after discovering that several common over-the-counter cold medications returned false positives for cocaine."

"Although the true error rate of these kits is not known, the Quattrone Center estimates, based on the incomplete data it could glean from state drug labs and other sources, that as many as 30,000 innocent people a year may be wrongly arrested for drug possession based on their results, making these tests "one of the largest, if not the largest, known contributing factor to wrongful arrests and convictions in the United States.""

""Presumptive field drug test kits are known to produce 'false positive' errors and were never designed or intended to provide conclusive evidence of the presence of drugs," Ross Miller, Quattrone Center assistant director and lead author of the report, said in a press release. "But in our criminal legal system, where plea bargaining is the norm and actual fact-finding by trial is exceedingly rare, these error-prone tests have become de facto determinants of guilt in a substantial share of criminal cases in the United States and, as a result, a significant cause of wrongful convictions.""

#HumanRights #CriminalJustice

Also, while this refers to drugs, it might also be useful to #chatcontrol in showing that false positives can lead to people being wrongfully arrested or convicted.

https://reason.com/2024/01/10/let-elon-musk-enjoy-drugs/
Hmm... I think that just because he does something, it doesn't mean that drug prohibition policies are suddenly a good thing. Is it worth losing space capabilities over? Very likely not.

Also, it's quite probable that whatever leads to him being, let's say, provocative, is also what contributes to his drug use.

https://nichegamer.com/twitter-drops-support-for-nft-profile-pictures/ I honestly never understood why Twitter (under the previous management) added this feature to begin with.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-age-verification-for-porn-sites-makes-sense
An electrician (who might have some knowledge on algorithms) reckons that "age verification" for porn sites "makes sense". That's his entire point. He doesn't really bother to make a real one.

He focuses a fair bit on alleged things one particular company might have done over five years ago (in one case, women "sort of" consented to a film, but didn't understand how widely it would be shared, and they later filed a lawsuit that a third party company (not the platform), had misled them), but this is actually immaterial to the argument of whether porn is intrinsically "bad" (or "harmful" to someone viewing it).

Now, there could be a conversation about whether that case couldn't have been better handled (or other things), but it hardly warrants this framing of "porn being evil". He also talks about a sexual extortion case in the same breath as porn, and while of course, that is a dreadful crime, that case also has nothing to do with porn (or these platforms). It is just there to try to implicitly conflate these things together. The perpetrator has also since been convicted for this crime.

Then, again, he mentions a case of sextortion, even though it is not relevant. In one case, which does involve "Pornhub", the plaintiff admits that she "doesn't know if the content was removed". Also, while it is claimed that Mindgeek does "not do enough" in one particular lawsuit, this sounds like a bog statement someone would put in when trying to claim damages from a company, and it doesn't say much in and of itself. In any case, it only tells us what one particular company might have done in the past, and it is again, immaterial to the point being made here.

"Various options for age verification, such as ID documents and video selfies" The proposed methods in the article are clearly extremely intrusive. They're also likely to have a chilling effect, and could even fuel more sextortion by providing more blackmail material for a criminal to leverage. It's not clear to me what the proposed "tool" ("age verification") has to do with any of these points, and it seems they're inserted simply to try to rile people up.

#canada

Sounds like an interesting idea, what do you think? (Though, I don't necessarily agree with this particular implementation, still it's an interesting discussion).

It's interesting that Thorn almost portrays themselves as a NGO when it comes to defending themselves from accusations of being a tech company (or an awful lot like one, at the very least), but then, there are these (weak) "corporate interests" arguments to avoid basic scrutiny of a highly contentious proposal. #chatcontrol

Additional context from @maxim at https://chaos.social/@maxim/111721090626489090 #chatcontrol #privacy

https://web.archive.org/web/20240109090402/https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/recommendation/en/179395

"The case concerned a request for public access to exchanges the Commission had with Thorn, an organisation which describes itself as an NGO, in the context of drafting a proposal for a Regulation on preventing and combatting child sexual abuse. The organisation has developed and sells tools for detecting child sexual abuse material.

The Commission gave access to a number of documents but refused to disclose (parts of) some documents saying that disclosure would undermine the commercial interests of the organisation.

The Ombudsman inspected the documents and found that the extent to which the Commission had refused access was unreasonable. The Ombudsman also noted that the Commission does not seem to have considered all elements that are relevant to assess whether there is an overriding public interest in disclosure. In light of this, the Ombudsman found that the Commission’s refusal of access constituted maladministration. She recommended that the Commission reconsider its decision with a view to giving significantly increased, if not full, public access to the documents at issue. In light of the related ongoing legislative procedure and the resulting time-sensitivity of this case, the Ombudsman urged the Commission to implement her recommendation swiftly."

#chatcontrol #privacy

https://libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/police-secretly-conducting-facial-recognition-searches-of-passport-database/

"Police forces have been secretly conducting hundreds of facial recognition searches using the UK’s database of 46 million British passport holders, it can be revealed.

Policing minister Chris Philp sparked fresh alarm among privacy campaigners at the Conservative Party conference in October when he announced plans to instruct officers to use passport photos to identify suspects in all burglaries, thefts and shoplifting, as part of a Home Office drive to increase police use of facial recognition.

However, Liberty Investigates can reveal the practice has been secretly taking place since at least 2019, according to a freedom of information (FOI) request – with searches dramatically ramping up in the months prior to Philp’s speech.

Data obtained from the Home Office shows forces searched the UK passport database – which contains the images of all 46 million British passport holders – using facial recognition technology more than 300 times in the first nine months of 2023. Forces have also carried out searches of the UK immigration database, which holds information on foreign nationals."

#privacy

https://web.archive.org/web/20240108091404/https://rm.coe.int/0900001680ad5b97 A case about prisoners being granted leave to attend the funerals of relatives.

There also appears to be an ECHR case against Russia for the "mysterious set of deaths" which seem to be happening to people who criticize the president.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240107132330/https://rm.coe.int/0900001680ad98ff Apparently, the indefinite retention of biometrics by police violates the European Convention on Human Rights (#ECHR). Yes, a British case, lol. #privacy

Someone seems to think VR is a new idea.

VR is not a new idea. It's an idea from the 90s which has been warmed up more recently.