Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67177330 Evil cop.

Looking deeply, there is a greater degree of conflation when it comes to "realism" and malfeasance, even when it is very far from being like a pseudo-photograph.

There is a certain level of conspiracy based on hearsay.

They admit they can be distinguished.

They appear to doubt their own arguments.

Also, seeing them making some strong claims, then saying things which would appear to contradict those claims (i.e. they're often images of someone who has been "de-aged") on pages people are less likely to read tucked in a sentence five paragraphs down.

Why do we let them get away with this?

Typically, people who push such arguments are fearmongers in quite a few areas.

They rarely isolate themselves to just one, and they have a history of misleading people, and making exaggerations, and fantasizing up catastrophic scenarios out of thin air, and of trying to stir the pot, so to speak.

Once you put aside the "novelty technology" bait which is designed to shutdown critical thinking, it becomes evidently clear that it's just them up to their old tricks.

Once you realize these exaggerated arguments actually go back thirty years, that the sky hasn't fallen since then, and actually the sky still isn't falling now, then it becomes easy to see it for what it really is.

It's honestly boring having to bunk the exact thing I've been bunking since early on in this year. That is why I wrote that lengthy post, so I don't need to.

Strong emphasis on the term potential because I'm not really convinced here. Again, vague language / terms. Lead you with a spooky anecdote, then let yourself fill that in with your imagination. If I didn't learn from their associates doing this, I would be stupid.

Another one. Thousands of potential pseudo-photographs on some apparently very obscure and fringe "dark web site". Even if we presume these numbers are accurate, this is a drop in the bucket by any metric.

This is the sort of nonsense (from extremely bad faith actors) which people cite when acting as if the sky is falling here. When they use over the top emotionally manipulative language like "it's out of control!".

What's that outside the window. Oh, it's Ylva, don't worry about her, she's just there to make sure you are not doing anything... illegal. #chatcontrol

If it's not obvious enough, this is a parody with her spying in from outside... She would do it... Just in case, of course.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture-council/articles/good-the-bad-and-the-music-separating-art-from-the-artist-1234853750/ Interesting view.

The closest thing to a "smoking gun" here are the likes, and even then, this framing of a nefarious conspiracy is quite dubious. Also, isn't this a form of feedback, it's not hard to see why it proliferates.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/facebook-instagram-accused-harm-youth-mental-health-lawsuit-1234861212/

The problem with this suit is that they take a bunch of features which are fairly bog standard (as they can be useful to users), and benign, and try to spin them as evidence of a conspiracy (even though they could never be ipso facto evidence of such).

"infinite scroll" is just a bog standard feature which sites use to make it convenient for users. The alternative would be to go out of their way to make their own sites harder to use.

"recommendation algorithms" Same here. While you could make an argument against them, I don't like this particular "won't anyone please think of the children?" argument, it's a tool which presumably helps people find the content they want.

"alerts" Alerts are convenient as you know when someone has responded to you without having to manually check.

"quantification and display of Likes" What site doesn't have likes?

Most of these features can be easily explained with "adding value for the user".

"Arguing the company’s primary “motive is profit” and “maximiz[ing] financial gains,”"

So, basically, someone is not allowed to run a for-profit social network?

https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-government-caught-surveilling-social-media-of-teaching-assistants-and-librarians

"A startling revelation indicates that the UK government has substantially amplified its surveillance of the online activity of educators. Ranging from leading education experts to teaching assistants and librarians earning modest salaries, the magnifying glass of surveillance closely monitors posts critiquing education policies."

"Cases have also surfaced of the Department attempting to silence voices critical of government policy. Early years specialists Ruth Swailes and Aaron Bradbury have previously faced attempts from the Department to cancel their conference due to their earlier critiques. Similarly, Dr. Mine Conkbayir, a renowned early childhood author, was allegedly threatened with funding withdrawal for a conference she was scheduled to keynote, due to her criticisms. As she recounts, the Department also attempted to curtail her talk duration and verify her speech contents, pulling the strings of academic dialogue."

https://reclaimthenet.org/french-politicians-facial-recognition-rollout

"Surrounded by controversy, Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and affiliated with the Les Républicains (LR), has raised eyebrows with his call for legislative amendments to facilitate the implementation of facial recognition in high schools."

https://nichegamer.com/marvels-spider-man-2-removes-pride-flags-in-middle-east-version/

"The Middle Eastern (or at least Arabian) version of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 released, with pride flags and other content removed.

The censorship was required in order for the game to ship in the region with strict laws against LGBTQ+ individuals and behavior."

"Saudi Arabia also banned the recent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse movie for its inclusion of a trans flag, as well as Final Fantasy XVI for having a gay character."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/23/uk-officials-use-ai-to-decide-on-issues-from-benefits-to-marriage-licences

"Government officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) and complex algorithms to help decide everything from who gets benefits to who should have their marriage licence approved, according to a Guardian investigation."

"Civil servants in at least eight Whitehall departments and a handful of police forces are using AI in a range of areas, but especially when it comes to helping them make decisions over welfare, immigration and criminal justice, the investigation shows."

https://walledculture.org/how-copyright-drives-internet-fragmentation-and-why-it-is-hard-to-fix/

"The EU Copyright Directive is arguably the most important recent legislation in the area of intellectual monopolies. It is also a failure, judged purely on its own terms as an initiative to modernise and unify copyright across the European Union."

"It has also fragmented digital copyright law, as EU Member States struggle to implement a badly-drafted and self-contradictory text."

https://www.kiratas.com/2023/09/07/federal-administrative-court-overturns-data-retention-and-inventory-data-information-2/

Germany.

"Another legal slap for the former grand coalition: The Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) has now also decided that the obligation for service providers to store connection and location data for months, regardless of suspicion, which was inserted by Black and Red into the Telecommunications Act (TKG) is “completely incompatible”. with the European Electronic Communications Data Protection Directive. The provision that has already been suspended can therefore still not be applied. Deutsche Telekom and the Munich provider Spacenet sued and were proven right in lower courts five years ago."

"The federal government wanted to maintain the requirement despite multiple rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against data retention without reason and appealed to the Federal Administrative Court – represented by the Federal Network Agency. The Leipzig judges initially suspended the proceedings and asked the ECJ specifically about the relevant German paragraphs in the TKG. This declared the regulations to be incompatible with the fundamental rights guaranteed in the EU. Taking into account the decision of the Luxembourg judges, the BVerwG has now come to the conclusion that the TKG clauses “prescribe the retention of a large part of the traffic and location data without any reason, across the board and undifferentiated in terms of personnel, time and geography”."