Olives @olives@qoto.org

Say no to Censor Susie. #ukpol

I think the thing to remember is that it is fairly easy for looking for "risks" to bite a thousand bites out of a product, especially this sort of product.

From what we've seen of their products, they're very sensitive to just about anything, and it hurts the quality of their products.

What a surprise. A guy whose entire job is dependent on finding "risks" (concrete or not) to talk about reckons that the CEO hasn't been listening to everything he has to say. I wonder why.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/18/openai-putting-shiny-products-above-safety-says-departing-researcher
"Sutskever, who was also OpenAI’s chief scientist, wrote in his X post announcing his departure that he was confident OpenAI “will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial” under its current leadership."
"AGI" is completely made up bullshit. That is useful to keep in mind when reading anything these people say.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/12/sake-uk-japan-national-drink-goes-mainstream Interesting.

I covered this before in part but I'm not really a fan of third party URL shortener type services.

It's hard for a user to know where any particular link goes.

There *is* a way for a computer to dereference the link to figure out where it goes (I'm not sure if this makes requests or not to the server after a link service's server, I haven't looked into the technical details of it, I know such tools exist though), but a user would not only have to know about that tool, they would also have to manually put the URL into the tool to figure out where the link goes. That's not very user friendly.

Also, links appear to drift over time. One possible cause of this is the link expiring. That can theoretically be a security risk where a user encounters an old link and it points somewhere unexpected. Even without that case though, it's not a good experience for users.

A short URL also doesn't really add value. I have never seen a situation where someone has a shortened URL and I think "gee, this short URL is a great idea, I always have a bit of irritation as I can't immediately figure out where on earth the thing goes.

These things might also constitute a #privacy risk...

I see someone is upset with Facebook for reversing their policy of censoring media orgs when they just so happen to name a dead victim somewhere.

Even if you suppose the policy is good in principle, this sounds like it might be an annoying one to handle in practice with so many ways media orgs might do things across the globe.

Unless I take a closer dive, I'm unlikely to put too much time into this, and I generally avoid naming names of bad orgs to avoid giving them attention.

I've done it when it was important to do so but I don't want it to be my immediate reaction to them.

I didn't hit a tag with this post as it's fairly short, even if it adds context. I might do so in the future, if there is sufficient content.

One of the most appalling ways the namedropping is presented in is by claiming that there is a "standard" way of doing things, even though it is horrible, opinionated, and rights violating.

To give an example, something like a bikini is not really NSFW but I'm seeing people marking it as if it is (and consequently having it be blurred).

I'm seeing people marking content as NSFW when it is clearly not.

It's not *really* funny but in a dark way maybe it is. More than that, being very serious about all kinds of censorship can be stressful and it lightens the mood.

Plus, there is a fair chunk which is here because it is relevant / interesting. There isn't a hard rule for this.

As I hinted last year, I don't really want to comment on each thing individually, unless it is pressing, instead I'd like to comment on a more general thing. Sometimes, I will comment on something very specific though to make very clear that it isn't acceptable to censor.

I'm not even digging for bad news as far as I could, lol.

Tired.

I considered using a calm analytical tone here, but I opted for a no-nonsense one as it really isn't the time for that.

If you paid close attention, you might have seen a slightly older version of this post ;)

I don't think it is necessary as I post about that regularly enough but I figured it might be better to post it anyway just in case.

I'd like to cover "Aylo's" / "PornHub's" shenanigans here further.

"Aylo" is notorious for speaking over other people for their own gain (and to try to cover their historic reputation). For instance, they "endorsed" "age verification" which hurt their competitors and is poor for user privacy, before changing their mind later and vigorously campaigning against it.

Still, for Aylo, invading user privacy and leaking sensitive information about the sexual interests of users is just a small price to pay. It's just another part of doing business to them. Of course, once they realized that users were using their sites less due to it, they suddenly decided to change course.

Now, they're giving credence to anti-obscenity org advocating against things like VPNs and for censorship, and crucially, namedropping them while doing so and trying to present them as the "leader of the industry". It is extremely disturbing and it is paramount that these shenanigans are shut down immediately without giving it a single modicum of legitimacy.

Update: https://qoto.org/@olives/112432593064021268 I figured I'd cover the new porn science post here too but it shouldn't really be necessary.

#ukpol #FreeSpeech

#Vermont sneaking their "#AADC" (like #KOSA, it tackles "harms" to "children" in vague ways which are likely to chill speech) into another #privacy bill is very concerning. #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech