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web.archive.org/web/2024011602

Commenting on U.N. / Senegalese silliness this time.

The term "mere representation" is extremely suspicious and should be deleted. There is no legitimate purpose for this whatsoever.

The term "realistic" is somewhat suspicious and likely problematic (i.e. chasing fictional scenarios). Something needs to be done about this.

Then again, that is not the only thing which can explain how they behave (perhaps, there are multiple reasons).

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_t This feels like Big Tech and surveillance, even when surveillance really doesn't make sense in whatever they're doing.

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reclaimthenet.org/how-a-typo-i

"Namely, a “suspected typo” in a geofencing warrant is to blame for extending surveillance of everybody and their phone in a given physical location from a supposedly restricted one – to in one instance “two miles over San Francisco,” reports say.

That would include businesses, private homes, and places of worship.

The incident highlights the problems related to this legal/law enforcement tactic, and its implementation, and reminds those willing to listen why it is wrong to begin with – warrant order typos or not."

"It turns the rule of “innocent until proven guilty” on its head, and is therefore, as critics concerned with civil liberties insist, clearly unconstitutional."

edri.org/our-work/the-right-to

"Whether it’s tickets for public transport, parking, or buying refreshments on the train or cinema – if you’re a person in Czech Republic wanting to avail of any of these services and pay with cash, you could be at a significant disadvantage. In some cases, cash payment would not be possible at all, leaving citizens unable to access services. EDRi member IuRe is monitoring such cases and has pushed for a fine for services refusing cash payment in 2021."

A concern I'd have with the proposed "deepfake bill" is the apparent negligence standard (as opposed to knowingly doing something), although I don't know enough about it.

edri.org/our-work/portugal-new

"The Portuguese Constitutional Court has declared a new data retention law proposal to be unconstitutional. The law proposed, among other things, general and indiscriminate retention of people’s telecommunications data – like traffic and location data – for up to six months for the purpose of investigating serious crime.

The proposal had been approved in the Parliament and it was supposed to replace the previous data retention law invalidated by the same court in 2022. The law was declared invalid following a complaint presented to the Justice Ombudsman by EDRi Member D3 – Defesa dos Direitos Digitais, in 2017.

In response to the Constitutional Court’s decision, the Parliament has swiftly approved another dubious data retention regime in the beginning of 2024, which might face the same fate of being declared unconstitutional…for the third time."

"On January 5 2024 a new law proposal was approved in the plenary.

However, as argued by D3, the new data retention regime is not any less problematic. The new law does not dictates a data retention scheme directly, but allows it through an authorisation from a special section of the Supreme Court. It will be up to the Supreme Court to define the terms of each data retention authorisation, with the law solely requiring them to be proportional and for the purpose of investigating serious crime. The law does not set duration limits, specific legal grounds for data retention to be authorised, or the criteria for it to be considered proportional."

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#DRM isn't just an annoyance -- it's a violation of your right to use the items you own as you see fit. Learn more about our Defective by Design campaign at defectivebydesign.org, and follow our campaign account at @endDRM

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painting

"In his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler described how, in his youth, he wanted to become a professional artist, but his dreams were ruined because he failed the entrance exam of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Hitler was rejected twice by the institute, once in 1907 and again in 1908."

That is where the reference is from. Pretty deep.

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web.archive.org/web/2024010603
web.archive.org/web/2023111400

The next (an internet policy event hosted by the U.N.) is being held in Saudi Arabia, a country known for brutal repression and chopping critical journalists up into tiny little pieces.

Talk about out of touch.

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I don't typically write for . However, some of the puritanical anti porn takes (seems to mainly be cops with their "hunches", and basically asserting that porn must be bad, even though there is no actual evidence of this) are getting so detached from reality that I have to comment on it briefly. No, not on the fediverse, thankfully.

As for the other bits, there is a very obvious reason why online crime would increase during Covid. That is, because, uh, everyone is online and there isn't a whole lot else to do...? Also, locking up populations is not exactly great for mental health, and the mental health system was even driven to the brink of collapse (probably depriving mental health resources from many). And remember, that mental health, or services for that matter most likely, don't just spring to normality immediately, just because a situation has been lifted.

I've even seen allegations the "Conservative Party" has historically explored trying to dissuade people from using mental health services in order to save money. Crime (including child abuse) tends to be associated with poverty, it can be reasonably inferred that the economic devastation wrought by Brexit might be associated with an increase in crime as well.

Also, covid style lockdowns might deprive individuals from social inclusion.

So, right off the bat, we have far more compelling explanations.

There are other potential variables as well, such as potentially compromised international co-operation due to the "special military operation" involving Russia and Ukraine. Also, a lot of these modern platforms, when you think about it, are not really that old (especially, when you count uptake). Even the Web as a whole is not that old, when you think of the world in decades, rather than rapid yearly cycles.

Also, the folks over at the Home Office might periodically practically alter what constitutes an image based crime. Anecdotally, I've also noticed quite a few "he did something in 2020" type crimes being reported in British news articles, this might also bias numbers (I think that cops going out of their way to chase old low level image based crimes (i.e. viewing) is probably not the best use of their resources, although I don't know a whole lot about this particular phenomena).

That's not all someone could come up with, of course.

qoto.org/@olives/1115160112466 I've written about the more particular subject of how porn is not really some big evil (and even sort of how it intersects with human rights... sort of) before. Also, why a lot of the words I just wrote (in the above paragraphs) shouldn't matter for not engaging in censorship (or invading someone's privacy).

Also, platforms are typically becoming *more* censorious in terms of porn, or porn themes, as time goes by. That is typically what we see. So, either diversity actually reduces crime, or it is unrelated. Take your pick. It also calls into question the more censorship angle... It's also an annoyingly zero sum initiative, it's contentious, controversial, and wastes a lot of resources chattering about something that isn't going to work in the real world.

I've written about what might actually be helpful, although it'd be hard for me to immediately come up with something for the U.K. Typically, it comes down to educational initiatives (or enforcement action to deal with online predators?).

It's honestly quite upsetting that someone would ignore *literally everything else* going on in the country to peddle a "I hate porn" agenda. Not surprising at all. But, nonetheless, disappointing.

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cbc.ca/news/canada/british-col Canadian police tricked 150 people from the Kurdish community into handing over samples of their DNA by pretending to be marketers, offering them free samples of tea and swabbing them.

Finding a horrible person (murderer) was used as a justification for this.

In a nutshell, Blumenthal engages in grandstanding.

In 2009, as Attorney General, he grandstanded about former criminals using a social network, even if they weren't committing any crimes.

In 2017 / 2018, he was grandstanding about prostitutes on Backpage.

In 2019 / 2020, he was grandstanding about EARN IT. Even though it's an absolutely terrible idea.

In 2022 / 2023 / 2024, he was grandstanding about KOSA. He seems to be talking particularly bad nonsense about "AI" too, so better watch out for him.

I'm sure you could find more instances in the Blumenthal collection. What does it all have in common? Well, his ideas are unconstitutional (and harmful).

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You might remember that I dug back to something like 2009, and even back then, I could catch sight of him farting in the direction of the First Amendment.

Olives  
Whenever I hear about Blumenthal, it involves him wanting to do something that is very clearly unconstitutional.
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