Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reason.com/2023/10/26/damning-new-audit-finds-san-francisco-takes-3-years-to-approve-new-housing/

"San Francisco takes three years on average to approve and permit a new housing development, the longest timeline of any jurisdiction in California, and the city is out of compliance with numerous state laws requiring expedited housing approvals."

https://reason.com/2023/10/27/what-we-do-in-the-shadows/

"Review: A Vampire Mockumentary Takes on Local Politics"

"On the outside, Colin Robinson looks like every other boring schmuck who wears a boring tan suit. But he's no ordinary man. He's not even a human being. Robinson is an energy vampire—he feeds not by sucking blood, but by draining people's energy by boring or annoying them."

""Bureaucracy is the gum that clogs the gears of every human endeavor," the vampire council's chairwoman says. "All hail bureaucracy.""

https://reclaimthenet.org/internet-is-cut-off-in-gaza-as-israel-steps-up-operations

"Amid escalating bombing in Gaza by Israel’s forces, the region is now essentially cut off from the outside world as almost all communication networks are down.

With the absence of internet and phone connection, escalating the harsh reality of people and families becoming unreachable, concerns over censorship and free speech are rising exponentially."

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/10/trans-sex-worker-aclu-sue-tennessee-over-hiv-criminalization-law/

"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center have filed a federal lawsuit against a Tennessee law that requires HIV-positive sex workers to register for life as a “violent sex offender.”"

"The plaintiffs, which include a transgender woman, allege that they have faced discrimination and life struggles because of their violent sex offender status. These struggles have forced the trans woman to continue doing sex work, since finding a job can be difficult for someone on the registry."

"Medical professionals have said that HIV criminalization laws do nothing to stop the spread of the virus and may even encourage people not to get tested for fear that the knowledge could subject them to criminal penalties."

https://www.eff.org/pages/speaking-freely-nadine-strossen An interview with former ACLU President Nadine Strossen.

https://reason.com/2023/10/27/government-misuse-of-data-rightly-worries-americans/

"In news from the world of "what took you so long?" it seems that Americans are concerned about how governments and tech companies use the information they gather. Much current discussion is about the potential dangers of the data hoovered up by social media companies, and while people tell pollsters that worries them, they have no faith that regulators will hold private companies to account. Well, of course not; Americans know government is a big part of the problem and that officials are all too eager to misuse private information."

""Americans – particularly Republicans – have grown more concerned about how the government uses their data," Pew Research noted on October 18 of a survey of 5,101 participants. "The share who say they are worried about government use of people's data has increased from 64% in 2019 to 71% today.""

"Americans are actually more concerned (81 percent) about how private companies use their data."

"No matter the occasional congressional press release, government officials like it when private companies scoop up data. That's because the information can then be purchased in what officials insist is a legitimate end-run around the Fourth Amendment and other privacy protections."

"think of the children" ideologues love control and monitoring. The only problem is that these things can be harmful in a number of ways.

Yet, they pay attention to none of these problems, and instead, they double down on greater control and monitoring.

https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(23)00111-7/fulltext
https://cdn2.psychologytoday.com/assets/2023-02/Children's%20Independence%20IN%20PRESS%20.pdf

"Our thesis is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults. Such independent activities may promote mental wellbeing through both immediate effects, as a direct source of satisfaction, and long-term effects, by building mental characteristics that provide a foundation for dealing effectively with the stresses of life."

A devastating blow to the "won't anyone please think of the children?" savior complex folks.

2) There's lobbying around getting the E.U. to spend time chasing things which aren't photographs (or their moving equivalents).

I think this would, all things considered, be a bad thing.

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/historic-agreement-on-child-sexual-abuse-proposal-csar-european-parliament-wants-to-remove-chat-control-and-safeguard-secure-encryption/

With the one caveat that I haven't seen text for this (I'm relying on second hand accounts here), this sounds better.

Some points:

1) "Potential perpetrators and victims should be warned where appropriate, for example if they try to search for abuse material using certain search words."

A lot of the time, when this sort of thing is implemented, it is usually fuzzier than suggested here. Searches which "might be associated" with it. It consequently has many false positives, it seems particularly when it comes to non-english terms.

Though, a warning (if non-blocking) is an improvement over what that other article appeared to say. Also, the devil is in the details, if it is everywhere (even where it is clearly inappropriate), it can become a one-size-fits-all solution (which can be disproportionate or harmful).

2) "Providers who become aware of clearly illegal material will be obliged to remove it – unlike in the EU Commission’s proposal."

It seems okay, so long as it isn't any more restrictive than 18 U.S.C. 2251. If 2251 is overly restrictive in some way I can't envisage, that doesn't necessarily mean I agree with that.

3) "Public chats at high risk of grooming are to be moderated."

What does "high risk" mean?

4) "It must be possible to block and report other users."

Does this require an account?

#chatcontrol

I'm surprised no one has created art of Ylva peering through a window at you. For activism sake. #chatcontrol

https://edri.org/our-work/why-your-data-might-already-be-on-a-europol-list/

"Police forces around Europe seem hooked on the habit of collecting information on a massive scale and forwarding it to the EU's police agency, Europol. This undermines privacy, fair trial rights and the presumption of innocence. "

Taking action to oppose it now is just as important as it was before, if not more so.

Since I'm seeing bad faith actors wildly barking about "AI" and coming up with fantastical exaggerated "won't anyone please think of the children?" scenarios (though, not on the fediverse), I guess I'll boost this again.

https://netzpolitik.org/2023/einigung-im-eu-parlament-steht-bevor-chatkontrolle-nur-bei-verdacht/

1) That would only be the floor of where it might go. They could easily ask for more.

2) I worry this profiling system for porn site usage will hit far more legitimate usage (false positives) than it would any "nefarious usage". It's hard to imagine a porn site is a particularly good avenue for pursuing child porn photos reliably, especially a lot of it. This smells of religiously motivated lobbying.

3) It could still be extended to more content types (assuming they don't immediately find some "clever" way to do it here) and involves greater centralization.

4) Age verification for porn sites impinges on freedom of expression and privacy. This feels very moral panicky, a scientifically dubious moral panic (https://qoto.org/@olives/111083302650803082).

#chatcontrol

https://stopchatcontrol.eu Apparently, there is this new tool for opposing the #chatcontrol going around. It appears to have a petition and a tool for contacting lawmakers.

https://stopchatcontrol.eu There's even a change.org petition here (as well as options for contacting lawmakers to oppose the chat control).

https://stopchatcontrol.eu I don't know whether I agree with the use of GPT-3 here (mainly the potential for errors) but it's an interesting initiative.