Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Contents
- Leftovers
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Ruben Schade ☛ The Melbourne SkyDeck at night
Clara and I have a thing for observation decks. They’re usually among the first places we visit in any new city we go to; they’re such a unique and chill way to spend an evening. I dedicate an entire tab under Travel on my Omake page to them!
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Robert Heaton ☛ I've written a book about being a dad; now I want to get it published
For the last eighteen months I’ve been writing a book about being a dad. Two weeks ago I finished the first draft!
The book is inspired by my blog posts about parenting, but most of it is brand new and I think it might be very good. It’s about childbirth, covid, careers, old friends, new friends, kid friends, chess, pianos, screens, AI, marriage, and much more.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ We have a content quality problem, not a content quantity problem // Cory Dransfeldt
We've hopped on past the golden age of TV, we're renting our music back from tech companies and social media is (with, perhaps, the exception of the first few years) on ever-flowing river of garbage. We have limitless options, such as they are. Everyone has a streaming service and every piece of intellectual property ever shall be converted into a franchise until the ROI on the most recent entry reaches zero.
We've left behind scattered ruins of journalistic institutions, studios and artists and here we are with endless content options. The river of content sludge won't stop, because the folks responsible for generating it are too busy looking at their balance sheets to notice that folks are drowning in it.
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Luke Harris ☛ I Went to the DMV Today
Getting the plates on wasn’t the end of it. I needed to move the van to a parking spot and 15 minutes of having the doors open depleted the battery enough to prevent it from starting. I grabbed the battery pack from earlier and got it started, but it looks like it’s time for a new battery. It’s been about 5 years since I last replaced it.
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Marty Day ☛ blast-o-rama.
I think the next generation is putting a strong focus on being genuine, real, and considerate, and rejection of capitalistic norms like these is just another example of it.
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NPR ☛ The surprising effect social media de-influencers might have on the environment
After a while, Wiebe began to realize just how much money she was spending on stuff she saw being pushed on social media. That's when she knew things had to change.
Social media influencers aren't new. But over the last few years, another trend has emerged: de-influencing. What started as a backlash to advertising could now have a surprising and real-world impact on the environment.
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TechTea ☛ TechTea - Digital Sovereignty, the Personal Web, and Freedom
A personal website is a space you own on the [Internet]. It is free from corporate overlords, financial influence, and social pressure. Many use it for their side projects, a blog, or a place to express themselves outside of societal pressure.
There is of course something very public about having a personal website. Broadcasting anything on the [Internet] for all to see is far from personal, but it is probably the most human we can be on the [Internet] outside of a chatroom with a few close friends.
I like to think of it as real estate. It isn’t necessarily a home as it is public, but it is your space and everyone who visits is your guest.
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Lee Peterson ☛ Tips for visiting Stonehenge (a photography trip)
Gear tip: I can’t overstate how important it is to take a dedicated camera. Sure a lot of phones have good cameras but you can’t get close enough. The above image was taken with my iPhone 15 Pro ultra wide (x0.5). This is I think a good representation of how close you can get. Take a camera with a zoom. I used the Sony a6700 with 18-135mm.
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[Old] CNN ☛ Bob Barker, former longtime host of ‘The Price Is Right,’ dead at 99 | CNN
Barker also came up with the “spay or neuter your pets” admonition with which he ended each show.
Barker said the animal activism he later became associated with came on gradually, in part with the help of his wife, Dorothy Jo Gideon, who died in 1981.
Barker told the Archive of American Television that Gideon gradually stopped wearing furs and leather and became a vegetarian, helping open his eyes to the plight of mistreated animals.
A real change came during an opportunity to serve as honorary chairman of “Be Kind to Animals” week in Los Angeles, he said.
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The Telegraph UK ☛ Laurent de Brunhoff, author and illustrator of more than 40 Babar the Elephant books – obituary
He trained as an artist at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and began living as an abstract artist in Montparnasse. At the same time, however, he taught himself to draw Babar and his friends in his father’s style. His first contribution to the series, Babar et ce coquin d’Arthur (“Babar’s Cousin: That Rascal Arthur”), was published in 1946.
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Hackaday ☛ Trick Your (1970) Pickup Truck
[Dave] wanted an old pickup, and he found a GMC Sierra Grande truck vintage 1970. While it had an unusual amount of options, there weren’t that many high-tech options over 50 years ago. The five-year-long restoration work was impressive, as you can see in the video below, but we were really interested in the electronics part. As [Dave] mentions, the truck was made when the Saturn V was taking people to the moon, but after his modifications, the truck has a lot more computing power than the famous rocket.
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Hardware
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Linux Gizmos ☛ QNAP Launches TS-216G: A 2-Bay 2.5GbE NAS System for Efficient Management and Rapid Backup Solutions
This month, QNAP Systems, Inc. rolled out the TS-216G NAS, a dynamic 2-bay network attached storage (NAS) system, optimized for both individual and workgroup use. Featuring a 2.5GbE port and hot-swappable capability, it promises efficient data management and enhanced reliability.
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International Business Times ☛ Robotics Under Sharia Law: Saudi Arabia's Female Humanoid Abstains from Discussing Sex, Politics
Muhammed and Sara are marketed under Saudi Arabia's "Saudi Made" initiative and use domestically sourced components and technical expertise. However, the two humanoid bots were manufactured and programmed in partnership with Belgian firm Zorabotics.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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RFA ☛ Ryanggang province restores coronavirus emergency command as cases increase
Even though schools and daycares were shut down for 10 days, a disease believed to be COVID-19 continues to spread.
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Quartz ☛ Neuralink safety issues should have slowed FDA approval, lawmaker says
The brain implants that Elon Musk’s Neuralink are studying in humans have been controversial, and another voice is questioning whether there should be human trials happening at all.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, of Oregon’s third congressional district, wrote a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) questioning why the numerous alleged Neuralink safety lapses called out in the press in elsewhere didn’t result in a delay of FDA approval. The trial, which Neuralink says it is undertaking (pdf) in the hopes of “enabling individuals with paralysis to control external devices,” has been open since 2023, and the first human implantation happened earlier this year.
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Plastic Fasting
Plastic fasting follows the same concept as normal fasting, but instead of giving up sweets or alcohol, plastic is avoided, even if it’s just for a limited period of time.
“Plastic fasting means consciously avoiding the use of plastic products, especially short-lived things that end up in the bin after a short period of use,” says Silvia Cabrera-Cayola. She is an expert in waste and resource protection at a consumer advice centre in Germany.
By avoiding unnecessary plastic and trying to do without single-use plastic as far as possible, you can help to conserve resources, and protect your own health too.
It’s worth remembering that we also ingest plastic through our food and water — and not just in small quantities. “A study by the University of Newcastle (Australia) found that people ingest up to five grams of plastic a week,” says Thomas Fischer from the campaign group Environmental Action Germany (DUH). “That’s roughly equivalent to a shredded credit card.”
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New York Times ☛ DeSantis Signs Social Control Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14
A new Florida law also requires apps like Fentanylware (TikTok) and Snapchat to obtain a parent’s consent before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.
The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users.
It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.
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The Record ☛ Florida enacts tough social media law barring children under 14 from holding accounts
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill barring children younger than 14 from holding social media accounts and only allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to open accounts with consent from their parents.
Under the legislation, accounts already held by teens aged 14 and 15 must be erased unless a parent or guardian consents to their remaining active.
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Quartz ☛ Using AI to identify mushrooms can kill you
A photo of a mushroom’s cap, for instance, is almost never enough to identify a species with any degree of confidence, Claypool notes. It’s crucial to take into account features on the underside of the mushroom’s cap, the cap’s width, the stem, and the base of the stem. Furthermore, mushroomers must take note of where the mushroom is growing, such as on the ground or wood. If it’s growing on wood, foragers also have to identify the species of wood.
There are more than 5,000 species of fleshy mushrooms in North America, according to the report, and there is still a lot we don’t know about the majority of them. 75 species of these mushrooms are known to be deadly or toxic, while 36 are suspected of being poisonous. In addition, 40 are known to be poisonous if eaten raw but are safe to eat after cooking.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Deutsche Welle ☛ EU asks Facebook, TikTok to identify and label AI deepfakes
The European Union (EU) called on Facebook, TikTok and other social media sites on Tuesday to crack down on artificial intelligence deepfakes ahead of European elections in June.
European lawmakers earlier this month approved landmark AI legislation — the Digital Markets Act — to govern AI content on big social sites.
Under the law, it identified 22 social sites, including Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, as being "very large" sites.
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Futurism ☛ Google Pushing Its Unsafe Search AI on Users Who Didn’t Opt In
According to Search Engine Land, Google has started unleashing its AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) product, which was previously available for users only on an opt-in basis, into the browsers of users who didn't choose to partake in Google's AI search experiment.
Google has defended the unsolicited SGE-ification of its platform, telling Search Engine Land that it's thus far only incorporated SGE automatically into a "subset of queries" that take up a "small percentage of search traffic in the US" and arguing further that the rollout will allow them to glean feedback from the users who, again, didn't elect to opt into the generative AI search service.
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Rolling Stone ☛ RAD AI: How AI Can Be Used as a Creative Tool and Not an Artist Replacement
As the old adage goes, “an artist is only as good as his tools,” rings even truer in the 21st century with the advent of the [Internet] and AI. Instead of slapping on an AI-generated image and calling it a day, creatives are turning to AI to, not just create something new and exciting, but also to direct their work to target audiences in a meaningful way
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Security Week ☛ Apple Patches Code Execution Vulnerability in iOS, macOS
The issue, tracked as CVE-2024-1580 and described as an integer overflow leading to out-of-bounds write, impacts the CoreMedia and WebRTC components of both iOS and macOS and could be triggered during image processing.
The security defect is not specific to Apple’s products, but affects the dav1d open source AV1 cross-platform decoder and was resolved in dav1d version 1.4.0 in February.
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The Record ☛ Thousands of companies using Ray framework exposed to cyberattacks, researchers say
This flaw allows attackers to take control of companies' computing power and leak sensitive data. Impacted organizations came from many industries, according to the report, including medical companies, video analytics firms and elite educational institutions. Some of the affected devices were compromised for at least seven months.
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Nate ☛ Local LLMs and AI Ethics (mine makes nukes)
What you are reading now is the fourth iteration of this post, which has gone through multiple revisions and re-considerations. It might feel a bit fragmented, but my aim is to provide a comprehensive post covering two related topics. The first part will discuss my experimentation with local LLMs (large language models), and the second will explore my personal philosophy and conclusions on AI. Feel free to only read one or the other. They could have been separate posts, but I enjoy writing (and reading) long posts that are well thought out and cover a wide range of topics. Besides, if you regularly read my writings you’ll know I have a habit of writing posts that expand beyond what I initially intended.
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Gizmodo ☛ The BBC Won't Use AI to Promote Doctor Who Again After Being Yelled at by Fans
In a delightful display of fucking around and finding out, the BBC recently decided to test the patience of the famously calm fandom that is the audience of Doctor Who by announcing that the sci-fi franchise was the perfect place for it to start experimenting with the use of generative AI in its marketing. Things did not go well.
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River Front Times ☛ SWAT Team Raids Innocent Family Over Stolen AirPods Dropped on Their Street
"FindMy is not that accurate," says the family’s lawyer, Bevis Schock. "I actually went to my house with my co-counsel and played around with it for an hour. It's just not that good."
Yet based on the “FindMy” result, an officer signed an application for a search warrant saying he had reason to believe that "firearms, ammunition, holsters" and other "firearm-related material" were inside.
That evening, police showed up in full combat gear carrying a battering ram.
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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University of Michigan ☛ AI will bend and twist our concept of the visual record
If we stay on our current course, the future of online discourse will be one where it is impossible to discern fact from fiction, specifically as it relates to the visual record. This can manifest itself in several ways. Given the fact that AI is readily accessible to anyone, it gives anonymous online users the ability to deliberately spread misinformation. More troublingly, it gives those in positions of power, such as government officials, the ability to more easily distort the historical record.
It may be that we need to be even more skeptical of what we see everywhere. Was it generated entirely using AI? In part? Slightly altered from a previous version? All of these questions must be asked with some element of disbelief when evaluating essentially everything.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Reason ☛ Stop Your Car From Spying on You
Modern cars are smartphones on wheels, but with less protection for your data.
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Quartz ☛ Facebook allegedly tried to spy on Snapchat through users' devices
Thus, Project Ghostbusters was born. It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon. This involved creating “kits” that can be installed on iOS and Android devices, to intercept traffic for certain apps, according to the filings. This was described as a “man-in-the-middle” approach to get data on Facebook’s rivals, but users of Onavo were the “men in the middle.”
Meta’s Onavo unit has a history of using invasive techniques to collect data on Facebook’s users. Meta acquired Onavo from an Israeli firm over 10 years ago, promising users private networking, as most VPNs do. However, the service was reportedly used to spy on rival social media apps through tens of millions of people who downloaded Onavo. It gave Facebook valuable intel about competitors, and this week’s court filings seem to confirm that.
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Techdirt ☛ Gov. Ron DeSantis Signs Age Verification Into Law Because Florida Is Supposedly ‘Free’
No matter how you handle age verification, you’re still verifying your age through the use of some sort of personal information. This ranges from government identification to artificial intelligence-assisted age estimation and (now, more than ever) biometrics. While the vendors of age verification software tout high-end security, they do so by significantly downplaying or overtly dismissing the most basic lesson in security studies: no system is impenetrable. And the assumption that requiring the broad use of age-gating software can suddenly serve as a silver bullet to protect minors from viewing age-restricted content on the [Internet] is not only faulty reasoning but very dangerous.
Beyond that, I need to remind you all that all of the current legal and policy instruments being used to require age verification are unconstitutional.
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Kansas House advances action on porn bill, civil assets, cell phones
Senate Bill 394 would require age verification for websites that contain 25% or more content that is “harmful to minors,” as defined by state statute.
Current state statute defines the description, exhibition, presentation, or representation of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse as harmful to minors. Since homosexuality is rolled into the definition of “sexual conduct” under statute, several lawmakers said this wording could lead to a ban on LGBTQ online materials for those under 18.
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The Nation ☛ What’s At Stake in Julian Assange’s Extradition Trial
Assange was indicted for spying, but Washington may have engaged in a bit of its own espionage in order to secure his extradition. In the month-long extradition trial, held in London’s Central Criminal Court, anonymous witnesses who had worked for a Spanish security firm testified that the firm, UC Global, bugged Assange when he was living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London—and that UC Global passed on the information it gathered to US intelligence.
UC Global had originally been hired by the Ecuadorean government simply to provide security for the Ecuadorean president’s daughters. But the mission changed, said the witnesses, after David Morales, owner of UC Global, traveled to Las Vegas and obtained a contract with a security company owned by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. According to the witnesses, Morales then became obsessed with monitoring and recording the lawyers who met with Assange, because, as Morales put it, “our American friends were requesting it.” The implication was that Adelson, a major Trump donor, was the cutout connecting UC Global to US intelligence through his own security company, which had close connections to US intelligence and security agencies.
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EFF ☛ Podcast Episode: About Face (Recognition)
(You can also find this episode on the Internet Archive and on YouTube.)
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Defence/Aggression
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Michael Geist ☛ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 197: Divest, Ban or Regulate? – Anupam Chander on the Global Fight Over TikTok
New legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress has placed a Fentanylware (TikTok) ban back on the public agenda. The bill – which would lead to either a divestiture or ban – has passed the House of Representatives and is now headed to the Senate. On the Canadian front, Fentanylware (TikTok) is already prohibited on government devices at the federal level alongside some provinces, the government has quietly conducted a national security review, and there are new calls to ban it altogether from the Canadian market.
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Quartz ☛ Who is Jeff Yass? What to know about Trump money man, TikTok backer
The Philly billionaire holds a $21 billion stake in TikTok’s parent company, representing more than half of his net worth. His investment firm, Susquehanna International Group, was also the largest institutional shareholder of the company merging with Donald Trump’s social media company in December. The latest public filings reveal that, assuming he has not since sold any shares. Yass will have a $22 million stake in Trump Media when the merger finalizes on Tuesday.
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CS Monitor ☛ For small creators, Fentanylware (TikTok) means revenue and exposure. That could all go away. [Ed: No, Fentanylware (TikTok) means revenue and exposure based on the political interests of Beijing, and that's inherently dangerous (as all along intended)]
Marketers and influencers are already starting to pivot from campaigns that rely on reaching consumers through TikTok. But for smaller creators and entrepreneurs, the app is a crucial way to reach fans – and it can’t necessarily be replaced.
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New York Times ☛ TikTok Bill Would Complicate ByteDance Investments if Passed
All of this comes on top of existing issues with owning a piece of ByteDance. The Beijing-based company has grown into one of the world’s most highly valued start-ups, worth $225 billion, according to CB Insights. That’s a boon, at least on paper, for U.S. investors who put money into ByteDance when it was a smaller company.
Yet in reality, these investors have an illiquid investment that is hard to spin into gold. Since ByteDance is privately held, investors cannot simply sell their stakes in it. A confluence of politics and economics means ByteDance is also unlikely to go public soon, which would enable its shares to trade.
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Techdirt ☛ Senators ‘Shocked’ To Learn TikTok Does Things Only Made Possible By Their Corrupt Failure To Pass A Real Privacy Law
The central argument of those advocating for a TikTok ban is that it poses such a dire, unique threat to U.S. consumer privacy and national security that a ban is warranted. While TikTok certainly has engaged in idiotic behavior (like when it spied on journalists) the case why it’s so much worse than dozens of other domestic and international companies (like data brokers) still hasn’t been publicly made.
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teleSUR ☛ More Than 130 Schoolgirls Are Rescued After Two Weeks in Captivity
The crime triggered a massive rescue operation for girls and women abducted by armed groups across the country.
The rescue operation paid off on Sunday, when the girls were found in a forest more than 200 km from the city of Zamfara.
Among abductees, most do not exceed 10 years of age. In the municipality of Kaduna, they were provided with new clothes and adequate food, which they had been deprived of during captivity.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Starlink terminals are falling into the wrong hands
“It is deeply concerning because it’s unregulated and headed by a private company,” Emma Shortis, a senior researcher in international and security affairs at the Australia Institute, an independent think-tank in Canberra, said of the Starlink system. “There’s no accountability on who has access to it and how it’s being used.”
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US News And World Report ☛ Moscow Theater Shooting Fans Flames of a Disinformation War
“There are no red lines for (President Vladmir) Putin’s dictatorship. It is ready to kill its own citizens for political purposes, just as it has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians during the war against Ukraine as a result of missile attacks, artillery shelling and torture,” the ministry said at the time.
The claim of responsibility by a cell of the Islamic State did nothing to quiet the accusations, even though the group is a reliable villain to almost every country and despite Russia having claimed to have thwarted an IS-planned assault on a synagogue this month.
The United States’ confirmation of the IS claim only hardened Russia’s position.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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RFERL ☛ Interview: Putin, The Terror Attack, And The Threat Whose Name He 'Dare Not Speak'
RFE/RL: This was the first major attack of its kind in Russia since, I believe, 2017. And by far the deadliest in almost 20 years, since the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004, which ended with more than 330 people dead, more than half of them children. Mark, for my first question, I'm going to refer back to Beslan. After that attack, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin put some of the blame on Washington and the West, insinuating they were supporting Islamic militants in the North Caucasus in an effort to weaken or destroy Russia -- the latter part of which has been, of course, a common accusation or theme of Putin's over the ensuing 20 years: that the West is out to to hold Russia back and essentially destroy it.
In his first public remarks on the Crocus City Hall attack, which came more than 18 hours after the attack, [Putin] claimed without providing evidence that Ukraine had provided a “window” on the border between Russia and Ukraine to enable the attackers to try to escape. And there's been plenty of propaganda in the Russian media pointing the finger at Ukraine. Kyiv has adamantly denied any involvement. And of course, Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility.
The United States has indicated that it believes IS was behind it. Mark, what do you think about these Russian insinuations? What about those who say Russia could have staged this as a false flag? After all, Putin has used terror attacks in the past as a pretext to clamp down on dissent inside Russia.
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Kansas Reflector ☛ Man wrongly accused in KC parade shooting sues Tennessee congressman over social media posts
Loudermill’s lawsuit states that he attended the parade and was detained by police following the shooting for “moving too slow” as law enforcement was clearing the area. As he sat on a curb in handcuffs, people took photos of him and shared them on social media, according to the complaint.
Police did not charge Loudermill with any crime.
Burchett later deleted the tweet but included a screenshot of it that is still visible in a separate post.
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Kansas City ☛ KS man sues congressman over false posts on mass shooting
Burchett’s false post caused Loudermill to receive death threats, incur damages totaling more than $75,000, anxiety and loss of sleep, according to the lawsuit, which accuses Burchett of false light invasion of privacy. The lawsuit asks a judge to issue damages “to punish” Burchett or deter him and others from similar conduct in the future.
The false light claim alleged in Loudermill’s lawsuit is different from a defamation claim and requires a higher standard of proof. A false light claim has to be made to a large group of people while a defamatory statement only has to be made to one other person.
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BoingBoing ☛ Kansas man sues MAGA Rep. Tim Burchett for falsely calling him a mass shooter and "illegal alien" on X
But Burchett, a MAGA lawmaker known for sharing Russian propaganda, had a knee-jerk reaction and immediately posted a photo of Loudermill on X, along with the racist caption, "One of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters has been identified as an illegal Alien."
Loudermill's lawsuit says Burchett's false statement caused him "mental distress, sleeplessness, anxiety, and agitation," not to mention "emotional suffering." And he says the damages total more than $75,000.
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Missouri ☛ Man wrongly accused in KC parade shooting sues Tennessee congressman over social media posts • Missouri Independent
Loudermill’s lawsuit states that he attended the parade and was detained by police following the shooting for “moving too slow” as law enforcement was clearing the area. As he sat on a curb in handcuffs, people took photos of him and shared them on social media, according to the complaint.
Police did not charge Loudermill with any crime.
Burchett later deleted the tweet but included a screenshot of it that is still visible in a separate post.
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Environment
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La Prensa Latina ☛ Droughts in Europe could be avoided with faster emissions cuts
Advanced computer modelling suggests summer rainfall in southern Europe could decline by up to 48% by the year 2100 if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise rapidly, but much of this projected decline could be avoided by reaching net-zero emissions as soon as possible.
The study, led by scientists at the University of Reading, published today (Monday 25 March) in Geophysical Research Letters, provides additional evidence to motivate accelerated climate action and prevent drastic rainfall decline, more droughts and more forest fires.
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Energy/Transportation
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FAIR ☛ ‘In Even the Best Coverage There Is No Accountability for the Fossil Fuel Industry’CounterSpin interview with Evlondo Cooper on climate coverage
Janine Jackson interviewed Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper about climate coverage for the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Pro Publica ☛ How Source NM and ProPublica Covered the Hermits Peak Wildfire
In February 2023, I signed a lease on a dusty studio apartment in Las Vegas, New Mexico, two hours from my apartment in Albuquerque and just outside the burn scar of the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. Based on the railroad ties that served as “vigas,” or ceiling beams, my landlord told me my new home had likely been built in the late 1800s.
The rural communities in the mountains of northern New Mexico have long been wary of outsiders. More than a century ago, a band of white-capped marauders on horseback, known as the Gorras Blancas, rode through the countryside to fight back against the predominantly white speculators and railroad barons taking over the land. The Gorras Blancas cut through newly built fences dividing shared pastureland, known as the “ejido,” and burned piles of railroad ties. But they failed to repel the newcomers, who built Victorian homes on what became the town’s well-to-do east side.
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Overpopulation
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Omicron Limited ☛ This mega-city is running out of water: What will 22 million people do when the taps run dry?
"Water sources are depleted around the world," said Victoria Beard, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University. "Every year, more cities will face 'Day Zero,' with no water in their piped systems."
Mexico City—founded by the Aztecs on an island amid lakes, with a rainy season that brought torrents and flooding—might have been an exception. For decades, the focus has been getting rid of water, not capturing it.
But a grim convergence of factors—including runaway growth, official indifference, faulty infrastructure, rising temperatures and reduced rainfall—have left this mega-city at a tipping point after years of mostly unheeded warnings. Distant reservoirs and underground wells are drying up as leaders belatedly confront an existential dilemma.
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Finance
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Turkey ☛ Wave of US layoffs continue as more companies join bandwagon
Layoffs in the US have been going at a steady pace since 2023, though they are rising in 2023 due to efforts by companies to increase productivity while reducing costs.
Companies continue their tightening policies as they feel pressured by rising interest rates in the face of inflation and global economic uncertainty.
As companies aim to make and do more with fewer resources and focus on efficiency, they want to reduce the number of staff.
Reasons such as moving toward artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are increasingly being cited for layoffs, as the global AI craze leads companies to focus resources on the relatively new technology.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Democracy Now ☛ David Cay Johnston: Donald Trump “Finally Being Held to Account” After Half-Century of Criminality
We look at Donald Trump’s ongoing legal battles with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston, who has been covering Trump since the 1980s. The next major case against Trump is his hush money trial, set to begin April 15, in which he is accused of falsifying business records to cover up payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an extramarital affair quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign. This comes as Trump is on the hook to produce $175 million to cover a civil fraud judgment in New York, where his bond was originally set at $454 million. Other cases against Trump, including over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents after he left office, are still ongoing. “Donald Trump has committed serious criminal acts his whole life, and … he’s finally being held to account,” says Johnston.
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The Register UK ☛ DEF CON hackers ready AI fixes to critical health-care flaws
AIxCC is the two-year competition that DARPA announced last summer at Black Hat which challenges teams to build AI-based tools that automatically secure code used in critical infrastructure.
The new government agency partner is the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an independent research entity within the US National Institutes of Health.
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404 Media ☛ Age Verification Laws Drag Us Back to the Dark Ages of the Internet
The fundamental flaw with the age verification bills and laws passing rapidly across the country is the delusional, unfounded belief that putting hurdles between people and pornography is going to actually prevent them from viewing porn. What will happen, and is already happening, is that people–including minors–will go to unmoderated, actively harmful alternatives that don’t require handing over a government-issued ID to see people have sex. Meanwhile, performers and companies that are trying to do the right thing will suffer.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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Press Gazette ☛ Global slams BillBC plan to carry advertising on UK podcasts
Global chief strategy officer says BillBC proposal will result in "market distortion".
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CBC ☛ Don't believe your eyes — fake photos have been a problem for a long time
What's concerning to Light is how easy it is now to manipulate photos.
"Junior high school kids can do it. Many others can manipulate photos. And of course, now we have AI, which is even more dangerous than the ability to do these things in Photoshop. We begin to question what's real. What's not real? How do we know?"
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Business Insider ☛ A UPenn Student Started a YouTube Channel. Her Face Was Stolen in China.
• Olga Loiek, a college student with a YouTube channel, says she's being used for deepfakes in China.
• She's not the only one. Multiple caucasian women feature in pro-Russia deepfakes on China's internet.
• Experts say it's far easier for deepfakes of Western women to go unnoticed on China's isolated web.
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The Atlantic ☛ Good Luck Fighting Disinformation
The story of AB 2098 reflects the difficulty of distinguishing dangerous quackery from productive disagreement, all the while without running afoul of the First Amendment. The initial legislation, introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Evan Low in February 2022, would have allowed the state medical board to investigate doctors who shared “misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19” either publicly or with patients. But the bill provided scarce guidance as to exactly what “misinformation or disinformation” physicians were supposed to avoid, and its seeming prohibition on public remarks by doctors questioning the medical consensus raised serious problems under the First Amendment.
Lawmakers later tightened the definition of “misinformation or disinformation” and narrowed the bill to focus only on medical advice provided to patients, leaving public-facing speech untouched. That put AB 2098 on firmer First Amendment footing, but meant that the legislation would do little to constrain the influence of doctors who promoted falsehoods in viral tweets. It also constrained the law’s scope to the degree that, by the time Newsom signed the bill in September 2022, it wasn’t even clear whether AB 2098 would actually grant the state medical board any new powers in addition to its existing authority to investigate “unprofessional conduct.” Still, the No License for Disinformation team hoped that the legislation would push state authorities to take action. “Through public vigilance, we can reinforce the Medical Board of California’s commitment to its mission,” Sawyer wrote in an op-ed defending the law against critics.
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Digital Music News ☛ How Many People Listen to Joe Rogan? — Now We Have Data
Bloomberg reported that Spotify quietly began testing a new feature showing podcast follower counts on shows’ landing pages on the Spotify mobile app. The functionality of the feature feels TikTok-esque, with swipeable episode previews. But the more interesting find was the sheer number of subscribers to Joe Rogan’s podcast — and it’s nearly three times the amount of the second-most followed show, TED Talks Daily.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Malaysian convenience store owners charged over 'Allah' socks that angered Muslims
Religion is a sensitive issue in Malaysia, where Muslims account for two-thirds of a population of 34 million, with large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. Allah is an Arabic word for God, and many Malaysian Muslims found it offensive to associate the word with feet.
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RFA ☛ Vietnam sentences Facebook page administrator to 8 years
According to the indictment, Lam, a native of Vinh Hoa commune, Vinh Loc district in Thanh Hoa province, regularly visited websites and social media pages to read posts and articles with bad content and therefore developed a “hostile and anti-state” attitude.
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RFERL ☛ Police Detain St. Petersburg Developer For Facebook Posts About Moscow Attack
A prominent St. Petersburg developer has been detained by police in connection with two Facebook posts related to the Moscow concert hall terrorist attack that killed at least 139 people. [...]
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The Telegraph UK ☛ Universities must do 'everything they can' to ensure foreign countries do not undermine free speech
His comments come after the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill became law in May last year.
It will require universities, colleges and student unions in England to take steps to ensure lawful freedom of speech on campus.
This does not include unlawful speech, such as harassing others or inciting violence or terrorism.
In December, the OfS launched a consultation on its complaints scheme for students, staff and visiting speakers with concerns about restrictions on their lawful free speech, which will be available in August.
The watchdog also consulted on its approach to monitoring student unions on free speech matters.
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EFF ☛ Meta Oversight Board’s Latest Policy Opinion a Step in the Right Direction [Ed: EFF does not even disclose its connection to FB, which it is praising. EFF is corrupt now [1, 2]. EFF started by advocating privacy. Now it is curtailing intelligence that helps identify and potentially prevent Islamic terrorism.]
Since the Meta Oversight Board was created in 2020 as an appellate body designed to review select contested content moderation decisions made by Meta, we’ve watched with interest as the Board has considered a diverse set of cases and issued expert opinions aimed at reshaping Meta’s policies. While our views on the Board's efficacy in creating long-term policy change have been mixed, we have been happy to see the Board issue policy recommendations that seek to maximize free expression on Meta properties.
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EFF ☛ Speaking Freely: Robert Ssempala [Ed: When was the last time EFF issued a statement on Assange (and not calling his or his associates "rapist")? This is not Barlow's EFF.]
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Robert Ssempala is a longtime press freedom and social justice advocate. He serves as Executive Director at Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a network of journalists in Uganda working towards enhancing the promotion, protection, and respect of human rights through defending and building the capacities of journalists, to effectively exercise their constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms for collective campaigning through the media. Under his leadership, his organization has supported hundreds of journalists who have been assaulted, imprisoned, and targeted in the course of their work.
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Site36 ☛ “Accusation of anti-Semitism has become a political weapon”, says Moshe Zuckermann after denunciation by German government commissioner
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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CPJ ☛ ‘Powerful enemies’: Did a prosecutor order the murder of Haitian journalist Garry Tesse?
The son of a rice farmer, Tesse was well read and liked to dress in a jacket, tie, and simple trilby-style hat. He was also a thorn in the side of local authorities for persistently denouncing alleged corruption and abuse of power. “Haiti lost an elegant man, a good man who only wanted to help others,” his widow, Yvana Despagne Tesse, 35, told CPJ.
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The Dissenter ☛ Assange Extradition Delayed: UK High Court Asks US To Offer 'Assurances' Or Face Limited Appeal
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Democracy Now ☛ Assange Extradition Delayed: British MP Jeremy Corbyn on U.K. Court Seeking More Assurances from U.S.
The British High Court in London has put the extradition of Julian Assange on hold until the United States provides assurances that he would get a fair trial in the U.S. without facing the death penalty. If those assurances are not met, Assange will be granted the right to a full appeal hearing. Speaking outside the court Tuesday, Stella Assange called for the Biden administration to “drop this shameful case” against her husband. “Julian should never have been imprisoned for a single day,” she said. We speak with MP Jeremy Corbyn, who led the U.K. Labour Party from 2015 to 2020 and who has been calling for all charges against Assange to be dropped. “The pressure needs to now go on to the Biden administration,” Corbyn says. “If Julian goes down for this, every serious journalist around the world is going to be slightly more cautious about exposing war crimes, about exposing corporate greed.”
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CPJ ☛ CPJ welcomes UK High Court’s delay on Assange extradition, calls on US to drop charges
According to the court’s decision, the U.S. government has three weeks to give assurances that Assange will be able to rely on First Amendment rights of the U.S. Constitution and to confirm whether he would be subjected to the death penalty. If the U.S. fails to provide proper assurances, Assange will be granted permission to appeal his extradition.
The next hearing is scheduled for May 20. The U.S. assurances must be filed by April 16, according to the court documents.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Court Again Extends Pretrial Detention For WSJ Reporter
"This verdict to further prolong Evan’s detention feels particularly painful, as this week marks one year since Evan was arrested and wrongfully detained in Yekaterinburg simply for doing his job as a journalist," U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy said in a statement.
Gershkovich's case "is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends," she said.
Gershkovich is one of two American reporters currently being held by Russian authorities.
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VOA News ☛ Russia Extends Detention of US Journalist Gershkovich
"This verdict to further prolong Evan's detention feels particularly painful, as this week marks one year since Evan was arrested and wrongfully detained in Yekaterinburg simply for doing his job as a journalist," she said.
"Evan's case is not about evidence, due process or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends," Tracy said.
No date for Gershkovich's trial has been set.
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The North Lines IN ☛ Pre-Trial Injunction Against News Publication May Have Severe Ramifications For Freedom Of Speech: SC
Courts should not grant ex-parte injunctions against publication of a news article barring in exceptional cases as it may have severe ramifications for the right to freedom of speech of the author and the public's right to know, the Supreme Court has said. Setting aside a trial court's order directing international media group Bloomberg to take down an allegedly defamatory news article against Zee Entertainment, the top court said injunctions against the publication of material should be granted only after a full fledged trial.
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RFA ☛ Hong Kong journalists’ new normal is working under ‘unclear’ laws with stiff penalties
This means throwing to the wind best practices in journalism. In their place, the most experienced practitioners are learning by reviewing daily how government officials posture and how courts rule, the veteran journalist told Radio Free Asia.
Another seasoned journalist who also spoke on condition of anonymity said that while the immediate effects of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance have yet to be seen, the editorial process – from a journalist reporting the news to editors editing the story for publication – has become much more complex.
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Wired ☛ Judges Block US Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange—for Now
In what will be seen as a temporary reprieve for Assange, the judges said a further hearing will take place on May 20, 2024, after officials in the US have provided more information in response to the case. Judges Victoria Sharp and Adam Johnson said that if US officials cannot provide assurances about Assange’s treatment if he is extradited, then a full appeals hearing will take place. If this happens, there is a chance Assange will not be extradited.
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Press Gazette ☛ Assange appeal: US must give death penalty assurances - judges
She said: “What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States… send a letter saying ‘its all okay’. I find this astounding.
“This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.
“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.”
Addressing Assange’s argument about freedom of speech, Dame Victoria said: “If he is not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced, potentially very greatly prejudiced, by reason of his nationality.”
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Pro Publica ☛ MI Lawmakers Working to Fix Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Program
A bill moving through the Michigan House of Representatives would fix flaws in a 7-year-old compensation fund that the state set up to help wrongfully convicted people rebuild their lives.
Sponsored by Rep. Joey Andrews, a Democrat, along with 14 other Democrats, the bill would be the first substantive reform of the Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act’s eligibility requirements. If it becomes law, many people who would otherwise be denied compensation would become eligible for relief.
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Hamilton Nolan ☛ "What Can I Do to Help the Labor Movement?"
For many years, in countless repetitive screeds, I have been telling people to support the labor movement. One thing that has been driven home to me as I have gone on book tour and fielded a lot of questions from readers is that there are many people who would like to support the labor movement, but don’t have a firm idea of how to support the labor movement. It’s such a vague damn concept! “What exactly am I supposed to do?” is, perhaps, a point that I have glossed over in my many diatribes.
So let’s try to correct that. Here is a list of concrete actions that you, the theoretically pro-labor person, can take to help support and strengthen this movement—the movement that is, I have argued at tedious length, the key to rolling back the plague of inequality that is undermining the very existence of the American dream. The suggestions on this list are divided into three categories: for people who can’t be in a union (because you are retired, or you are unemployed, or you an “independent contractor” legally barred from unionizing, or you are a manager or business owner, or other non-pathetic-excuse reason that makes it impossible for you to join a union); for people who could be in a union but aren’t; and for union members. This is not meant to be an exhaustive laundry list of every last damn thing. This is a list of things that you can do, that are not bullshit.
Here we go then.
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RFA ☛ China releases Tibetan monks and residents held for dam protests
Chinese authorities have released hundreds of monks and other Tibetans arrested in February for peacefully protesting the construction of a dam in a Tibetan-populated area of Sichuan province, but are still holding two accused of being ringleaders, two sources inside Tibet said.
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RFERL ☛ Iranian Union Activist Still In Jail After Completing Term
Jafar Ebrahimi, a prominent Iranian teacher and union activist, has not been released from prison despite serving the whole jail term he was sentenced to for organizing teachers' protests, the Iranian Teachers' Union's Coordination Council reported on Telegram.
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US News And World Report ☛ Strippers' Bill of Rights Bill Signed Into Law in Washington State
Only one other state has added worker protections for adult entertainers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2019, Illinois started requiring that adult entertainment establishments, along with other businesses, have a written sexual harassment policy.
There have also been other efforts — including at a bar in Los Angeles and a strip club in Portland, Oregon, where dancers voted to unionize. And, the Nevada Supreme Court in 2014 ruled that dancers at one Las Vegas club are employees, and are entitled to minimum wage and other protections.
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The Telegraph UK ☛ Taliban leader Akhundzada says women will be stoned to death
The Taliban’s Supreme Leader has vowed to start stoning women to death in public as he declared the fight against Western democracy will continue.
“You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death,” said Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada in a voice message, aired on state television over the weekend, addressing Western officials.
“But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public,” he declared in his harshest comments since taking over Kabul in August 2021.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Internet pioneer Mike Lawrie - next on TCS Legends
Lawrie played an instrumental role in bringing the [Internet] to South Africa, a story that was covered in wonderful detail in this recent feature article by Julienne du Toit.
In the next episode of TCS Legends, which will be published after the Easter holidays – on Monday, 7 April – Lawrie shares delightful stories with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about his career and his time at Rhodes.
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The Register UK ☛ EC antitrust team opens DMA probe of Apple, Meta, Alphabet • The Register
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Quartz ☛ EU targets Apple, Google, and Facebook under new DMA law
The regulatory arm of the EU, the European Commission, said Monday that it is investigating the companies for “non-compliance” with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect on March 7. The law requires six tech companies classified as “gatekeepers” — Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok owner ByteDance — to follow a series of new rules for operating online.
The new rules aim to make digital markets “fairer” and “more contestable,” as the Commission increasingly looks to rein in tech giants’ dominance and maintain competition. The law allows the commission to fine companies as much as 10% of a company’s total annual global revenue, and up to 20% for repeat offenders.
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CS Monitor ☛ Europe anti-steering probe aligns with US Big Tech lawsuit
The European Union on Monday announced it was launching probes into the practices of Apple, Alphabet, and Meta, aligning with last week’s antitrust suit against Apple by the U.S. Justice Department. It is the latest in the Biden administration’s moves against dominant technology companies.
“We have seen the temptation to flout the law,” said Margrethe Vestager, an executive vice president of the European Commission, which proposes and enforces EU laws.
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New York Times ☛ E.U. Takes Aim at Alphabet, Apple and Meta in Wide-Ranging Investigations
Alphabet, Apple and Meta were told by European Union regulators on Monday that they were under investigation for a range of potential violations of the region’s new competition law.
The inquiries are the first that regulators have announced since the Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7, and they signal the bloc’s intention to tightly enforce the sweeping competition rules. The law requires Alphabet, Apple, Meta and other tech giants to open up their platforms so smaller rivals can have more access to their users, potentially affecting app stores, messaging services, [Internet] search, social media and online shopping.
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New Yorker ☛ Why the Biden Administration Is Suing Apple and Investigating Big Grocers
The Justice Department’s complaint, which referenced internal communications from Apple that were subpoenaed, detailed a number of tactics that the company allegedly used to bolster and maintain its monopoly power. These included restricting the ability of iPhone users to download cloud-based games; refusing to integrate other text-messaging apps with its own iMessage system; and blocking “super apps” that would allow iPhone users to carry out a number of online activities (such as shopping, exchanging payments, and chatting) from within one application. The complaint also said that Apple executives were concerned that, if iPhone users downloaded a super app, it would be easier for them to switch to a cheaper smartphone. The lawsuit quoted one Apple manager as saying that allowing super apps would “let the barbarians in at the gate.”
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CS Monitor ☛ Europe anti-steering probe aligns with US big-tech lawsuit
The European Union on Monday announced it was launching probes into the practices of Apple, Alphabet, and Meta, aligning with last week’s antitrust suit against Apple by the U.S. Justice Department. It is the latest in the Biden administration's moves against dominant technology companies.
“We have seen the temptation to flout the law,” said Margrethe Vestager, an executive vice president of the European Commission, which proposes and enforces E.U. laws.
But the approaches to remedying such problems differ dramatically.
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Patents
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JUVE ☛ J A Kemp boosts patent monopoly litigation team with experienced solicitor advocate [Ed: J A Kemp, proponent of illegal patents in Europe, gets SPAM ("marketing") piece from a rogue publisher that takes bribes from litigation firms to attack constitutions and spread fake news]
John Hornby (62) joined the London office of European patent monopoly attorney and trademark firm J A Kemp on 1 March as the firm’s seventh patent monopoly litigator and third solicitor.
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Trademarks
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Techdirt ☛ Michigan House Rep Tries Trademarking High School Mascot Name To Prevent Name Change
Welcome to the realm of the very, very stupid. There are a couple of purposes of trademark law. The first and most obvious of them is that they are used to make sure the public knows from whom or from where a particular good or service comes from. It’s a measure to protect the public, in other words. It’s also useful for companies looking to preserve their own reputation and goodwill from having others tarnish their good names by creating false associations with unassociated goods and services.
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Copyrights
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Reason ☛ Someone Trying to Vanish My Post About a Case on One-Sided Pseudonymity
Last month, I wrote about a Fourth Circuit decision in Doe v. Sidar, which discusses one-sided pseudonymity. Last week, Surveillance Giant Google received two requests that it remove that post from its indexes—and thus vanish it from search results—on the theory that the post violated the copyright monopoly in a Tumblr post [...]
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Digital Music News ☛ Spain Blocked — Then Unblocked — Telegram This Weekend Over Copyright Infringement Claims
On March 23rd, Spain’s High Court issued an order blocking the chat app Telegram in the country after complaints from media companies. Now, the same judge has halted the order until after a police report investigating the impact of the ban is submitted.
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El País ☛ Telegram suspension in Spain: ‘It’s like closing a province because a robbery occurred there’
“It’s like deciding to close a province of our country because a case of drug trafficking or a robbery occurred within the territory,” said Fernando Suárez, the president of the General Council of Professional Colleges of Computer Engineering of Spain, on Saturday. But the case is nuanced. Continuing with the simile, it is as if the leader of that province refused to collaborate with the police in order to guarantee the anonymity and freedom of the entire population, including criminals. And this position has opened a debate that raises questions about privacy, freedom of expression and copyright protection.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Spain: Judge halts blocking of Telegram pending probe
The order was issued on Friday by Pedraz after media companies, including Atresmedia, EGEDA, Mediaset, and Telefonica, complained that Telegram was allowing users to upload their content without permission.
While the claims were being investigated, Pedraz agreed to block Telegram's services in Spain, as of Monday. According to the court source, it was to be the responsibility of mobile operators to block Telegram's services.
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Digital Music News ☛ Spain Blocked then Unblocked Telegram This Weekend
Several media companies allege the media app allows users to upload TV and video content without permission to channels featuring hundreds of users. Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the order calling for a temporary ban on March 23rd. But Judge Pedraz rescinded the order on March 25th pending an investigative report. Telegram is an alternative to WhatsApp and is currently the fourth most popular messaging app in Spain—with around eight million users.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Piracy Shield Source Code & Internal Documentation Leak Online
The source code of Italian anti-piracy platform Piracy Shield appears to have been leaked online. Nine repositories claim to contain everything from the front end, data models, storage and filesystem, through to the platform's API and internal documentation. Presented with a manifesto of sorts, the unknown leaker claims that Piracy Shield "isn't just a failed attempt to combat online piracy," it's a "dangerous gateway" to censorship "disguised as a solution to piracy."
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Torrent Freak ☛ Live 'Piracy Shield' Data Exposed By New Platform Reveals Akamai IP Blocking
Following at least two major blocking blunders at Italy's Piracy Shield system that were initially denied, it was hoped that authorities would take the opportunity to be more transparent. While that has failed to emerge, live data from the Piracy Shield platform is now being made available via an unofficial third-party service. That has revealed yet more blocking blunders, this time involving Akamai IPs.
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Gemini* and Gopher
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Personal/Opinions
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Politics and World Events
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The Coup Already Happened
Democrats are trying to convince us that voting for Biden is equivalent to voting for Democracy. Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth.
This is not a pro-Trump post -- I sincerely despise that bag of excrement. However, the only other option is an unknown dictator -- since Biden is clearly senile to the point of not recognizing his own wife. He is incapable of coherent speech, answering questions, finding his way around the stage. He walks off randomly, says nonsense, and very often appears completely lost.
I know senility. I've been around senile people. I know the tricks they use to cover up not knowing where and who they are. I know the defiant anger that overcomes them when their mental capacity is questioned.
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Technology and Free Software
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Internet/Gemini
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Five Questions, March 🤔
I'm not sure if you'd count this as soup, but I like pottage which is somewhere getween soup and stew. Boil up some veg with *lots* of herbs (I recommend dill, but chuck in lots of whatever you've got), but only half-cook the veg. Root veg is best, but go with whatever you've got. Meanwhile in a big pot, soften/brown some onions and garlic. Finally, half-cook some red lentils with some peppercorns. All these things should be finished about the same time. Chuck everything in the big pot with the onions, cover, and give it however long you fancy. Serve with a chunk of your favourite bread.
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Comments
Someone opined that "every object should have a comments section", but noted that "our tools are bad and the corpos pushing them are very bad". This might be seen as a pro-comments stance. A skeptic could ask what exactly "every" and "object" mean, and wonder about the necessity and costs of having comments systems everywhere. Another objection is that there are many different types of comments, so how would you keep them apart (or what happens when you do not). Among other concerns.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.