Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reason.com/2024/02/09/new-report-measures-attempts-to-impose-and-evade-internet-repression/

"This week, government officials in both Pakistan and Senegal cut public access to the internet in moves clearly meant to crack down on political debate. Pakistan severed connections to limit information coinciding with a general election of questionable credibility while Senegal's action occurred after the government postponed a presidential vote to the end of the year. The restrictions come amidst global concern about increasing online censorship and surveillance."

If you think about it, QAnon type nonsense has been involved in child abductions (to "save" them), disrupting the ability to carry out sex research, videos being doctored to make the president look like a predator, random people being accused of being predators, a random furniture company being accused of being a sex trafficking enterprise, nonsense with drag shows / libraries. It is so toxic, and I've had enough of it.

Textbook QAnon type nonsense too.

Hmm. When it comes to the book bans in libraries, it seems the spectrum of it is actually pretty broad, and not sexual at all. Also, just because a book contains something "sexual" or some drawing of nudity, doesn't make it devoid of value.

It is worth mentioning that book bans don't just hit "school libraries" but "public libraries" too, so that might impinge on the rights of adults.

In any case, I think the more "provocative" content is probably a red herring for broader censorship.

Alright, let's say it. The Church of Scientology is a cult.

It's not as bad as was initially conveyed to me but it is still monitoring people under the assumption they're criminals with no basis for doing so.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts

"The Government is sneaking in new powers to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud and error.

It will force banks to flag people who meet secret criteria to the government."

#privacy #ukpol

When a platform tries to fact check something in isolation, when they really should be thinking of how it ties into QAnon, and debunking that.

I judge Bluesky by what they do, not what they promise to do, and so far, it's been a mess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU Rowan Atkinson (who plays Mr. Bean) talks about the importance of free expression.

While it would be nice to take a more radical approach to cutting down copyright terms, repealing this corrupt law would be a good start.

Repeal the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

https://www.theregister.com/2008/10/22/social_networking_privacy_germany/ Did you know that even in 2008, German privacy agencies were already mad at Facebook over #privacy?