Olives @olives@qoto.org

In the original short form of Death Note, there is actually a Death Eraser which brings people back to life after someone rubs names out with it. He removed this element from the main storyline (which was written afterwards), probably because that one is more serious and it would be less impactful to have random characters coming back to life.

I don't think I'd want to be the one to try to arrest an apparently god-like being who remotely kills people from afar through some magical power (and who might not even be human), lol.

You kind of have to admire the guy deciding not to create a Death Note 2, despite knowing that it would probably sell really well. A sequel would probably be far worse, lol.

The example of higher ice cream sales being "linked" to higher crime rates is used in introductory data science / introductory psychology as an example of how an apparent correlation doesn't necessarily mean there is a meaningful link. A possible third variable which might affect both is the weather.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/stop-working-ban-scan-new-york
"Ban the Scan is a campaign and coalition built around passing two packages of bills that would ban facial recognition in a variety of contexts in New York City and #NewYork State."

"The City and State packages are largely similar. The main differences are that the State package contains a bill banning law enforcement use of facial recognition, whereas the City package has a bill that bans all government use of the technology (although this bill has yet to be introduced). The State package also contains an additional bill banning facial recognition use in schools, which would codify an existing regulatory ban that currently applies to schools."

#privacy #FaceRecognition

Simply censoring more and more content is not really a sustainable goal and it would be nice for politicians to move away from it.

"virtual child porn"
The 90s called and they want their antiquated terms back.

For some reason, there are a few people, primarily online, who seem to think it's a valid term. It's a term from the 90s pertaining to one particular lawsuit (from over twenty years ago!) around a law with overly broad language (drafted by overly lazy politicians). While a few used it in commentary *around that lawsuit*, and a few even parroted it, it doesn't make it any more valid, and it hasn't been used in a very long time.

Most recent usages were from a far right QAnon conspiracy theorist cosplaying as an intellectual who wrote a conspiratorial rant about sub-humans five years ago and a Dutch scholar who didn't appear to be familiar with the subject area. It's archaic, it's confusing, and it was never intended to be used as a standalone term.

It also diminishes the seriousness of abuse by comparing mundane everyday harmless content to it by twisting and contorting language.

https://gothamist.com/news/artificial-intelligence-in-nys-courts-panel-will-study-benefits-and-potential-risks
"The New York state court system has established an advisory panel to study the potential benefits and risks of how artificial intelligence is utilized in court."
Is the advisory opinion going to be written by an "#AI"? Lol.

Hey, I know it's a bad idea, it's a joke.

https://www.efa.org.au/get-involved/lobbying/
Contacting elected figures in territorial, state, and federal governments is another avenue to push against censorship. #auspol #anime #FreeExpression

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/africa/nigerian-woman-faces-jail-over-online-review-of-tomato-puree-intl-scli/index.html
"A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business."
#FreeSpeech #FreeExpression

Seeing tech companies coming up with more and more fanciful excuses to not use humans for moderation and to use an algorithm instead.

This time, it's "the algorithm will be more accurate than a human in the future" which is both irrelevant (and probably bullshit).

https://tuta.com/blog/boi-fincen-threatens-privacy
"In the US, a limited liability company (LLC) is a business structure that normally protects other assets of its owners for example if a credit of the business can not be paid back. However, for privacy reasons lots of individuals buying a house hid their real identity from the public database of home owners by doing the purchase via an LLC. This practice protected your identity from being disclosed in public records which are vacuumed up by data brokers. This private way of making purchases protected those in danger of stalkers, domestic violence, and other immediate physical threats. Unfortunately, the Corporate Transparency Act is threatening this important longstanding legal #privacy practice."

It's time to seal away the terrible monster that is censorship.

Censorship is stressful.

I'm personally not a fan of classification standards compelled by the government but sometimes I have to meet people where they are.

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/have-your-say/modernising-australias-national-classification-scheme-stage-2-reforms
Ever been irritated by petty Australian Government censorship[1]? Well, the Australian Government is running a consultation on that. You have a chance to have a say on the matter.

If there are other areas of censorship which you'd like addressed, you can tackle those as well. I am simply covering in this post what comes to mind for me. The two main ones being the particular brand of puritanism which the government has sometimes had, and the irrational fear of games containing "drugs and alcohol" (even going as far as banning these entirely at times). There was also a game which was censored which appeared to allow players to perform drone strikes on tanks, perhaps due to fears of this seeming too similar to the situation in Ukraine (the precise classification appeared to be "criminal instructions" or something to that effect).

While what is happening to the folks from Ukraine is most despicable, and war more generally is tragic, I don't think there is any justification for this sort of censorship. There should be a strong presumption against censoring fictional content in general.

For violence, animated violence should probably be rated a bit to somewhat lower than more realistic violence. It doesn't make a lot of sense to treat these the same (unless the rating is low enough that it doesn't matter).

For sexual content, I have a couple of recommendations here:

1) If it involves a fictional character who doesn't exist (i.e. #anime / manga), there shouldn't ever be a reason to issue a RC rating. At most, maybe a R18 rating. A lower degree of eroticism or nudity (not really porn) might be present in anime and I think any rating should avoid rating that highly. It doesn't matter what the fictional character looks like.

I feel that muddling reality and fiction here really diminishes the seriousness of things like abuse. There also isn't a scientific basis for that sort of censorship, [2] goes into that (and other related matters). Some sort of sex education (perhaps around respecting someone's boundaries) might be better than relying on crude censorship which does not appear to be effective (and has harmful drawbacks of it's own, including even a harmful "War on Drugs" type phenomena when taken to an extreme).

2) For content containing real human actors, as a rule of thumb, if the content is produced with the (obviously adult) actor's consent, it should be permitted. If there is to be any limitation, it should involve an objective standard of serious physical harm, rather than the remote possibility that someone might be offended by the content. You also have to be wary of the Board construing this far too broadly though by deciding that a very mundane activity might have a remote possibility of physical harm. They've done this in the past (as has the British one).

Neither of these two recommendations mean that every site has to carry every possible kind of content.

As a rule of thumb, you might want online content to be treated far more liberally than content to be broadcasted on TV. If you're not careful, they might try to impose stricter TV standards outside of that context, despite them being inappropriate. I don't think that is what people would expect. Online, in particular, tends to be more oriented around curating your own experience, than relying on a broad brush one-size-fits-all solution.

In regards to the government wanting higher classifications for "simulated gambling", I'd be wary of construing terms like simulated gambling very broadly and assuming any game which contains it is primarily focused on gambling (or contains things like loot boxes). As an example, classic Pokémon games had a building in one city which had gambling machines. These elements made up a tiny portion of the game and the vast majority of gameplay does not involve these.

1 https://refused-classification.com Many examples of petty censorship (even containing dramatic sounding excuses for what is essentially mundane everyday content).

2 https://qoto.org/@olives/111888946356326887

#auspol #FreeExpression

I see the ACLU is opposing bad anti porn laws.

It would be nice if #Kentucky would start following the Constitution and stop passing bills that they should know full well are harmful for no good reason.