#GDPR: Personal data

[ueberdemnebelmeer]

if you're looking for a simple gender-neutral period tracker that's open-source, doesn't require an account and stores your data only on your phone, you could give drip a try. it's available for both ios & android, and you can import your previous data via *.csv (in case your previous app exports data as JSON, e.g. clue, you can use this tool)

[norrkatt]

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[techdriveplay]

How to Manage Your Digital Footprint

In today’s interconnected world, our online presence is more significant than ever. Every click, share, and post contributes to our digital footprint, shaping how we are perceived both personally and professionally. This comprehensive guide on how to manage your digital footprint aims to equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to take control of your online identity, ensuring it reflects…

[trainsinanime]

I've seen a number of people worried and concerned about this language on Ao3s current "agree to these terms of service" page. The short version is:

Don't worry. This isn't anything bad. Checking that box just means you forgive them for being US American.

Long version: This text makes perfect sense if you're familiar with the issues around GDPR and in particular the uncertainty about Privacy Shield and SCCs after Schrems II. But I suspect most people aren't, so let's get into it, with the caveat that this is a Eurocentric (and in particular EU centric) view of this.

The basic outline is that Europeans in the EU have a right to privacy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU directive (let's simplify things and call it an EU law) that regulates how various entities, including companies and the government, may acquire, store and process data about you.

The list of what counts as data about you is enormous. It includes things like your name and birthday, but also your email address, your computers IP address, user names, whatever. If an advertiser could want it, it's on the list.

The general rule is that they can't, unless you give explicit permission, or it's for one of a number of enumerated reasons (not all of which are as clear as would be desirable, but that's another topic). You have a right to request a copy of the data, you have a right to force them to delete their data and so on. It's not quite on the level of constitutional rights, but it is a pretty big deal.

In contrast, the US, home of most of the world's internet companies, has no such right at a federal level. If someone has your data, it is fundamentally theirs. American police, FBI, CIA and so on also have far more rights to request your data than the ones in Europe.

So how can an American website provide services to persons in the EU? Well… Honestly, there's an argument to be made that they can't.

US websites can promise in their terms and conditions that they will keep your data as safe as a European site would. In fact, they have to, unless they start specifically excluding Europeans. The EU even provides Standard Contract Clauses (SCCs) that they can use for this.

However, e.g. Facebook's T&Cs can't bind the US government. Facebook can't promise that it'll keep your data as secure as it is in the EU even if they wanted to (which they absolutely don't), because the US government can get to it easily, and EU citizens can't even sue the US government over it.

Despite the importance that US companies have in Europe, this is not a theoretical concern at all. There have been two successive international agreements between the US and the EU about this, and both were struck down by the EU court as being in violation of EU law, in the Schrems I and Schrems II decisions (named after Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who sued in both cases).

A third international agreement is currently being prepared, and in the meantime the previous agreement (known as "Privacy Shield") remains tentatively in place. The problem is that the US government does not want to offer EU citizens equivalent protection as they have under EU law; they don't even want to offer US citizens these protections. They just love spying on foreigners too much. The previous agreements tried to hide that under flowery language, but couldn't actually solve it. It's unclear and in my opinion unlikely that they'll manage to get a version that survives judicial review this time. Max Schrems is waiting.

So what is a site like Ao3 to do? They're arguably not part of the problem, Max Schrems keeps suing Meta, not the OTW, but they are subject to the rules because they process stuff like your email address.

Their solution is this checkbox. You agree that they can process your data even though they're in the US, and they can't guarantee you that the US government won't spy on you in ways that would be illegal for the government of e.g. Belgium. Is that legal under EU law? …probably as legal as fan fiction in general, I suppose, which is to say let's hope nobody sues to try and find out.

But what's important is that nothing changed, just the language. Ao3 has always stored your user name and email address on servers in the US, subject to whatever the FBI, CIA, NSA and FRA may want to do it. They're just making it more clear now.

[aiolegalservices]

How to Ensure that Your Data Processing Practices Are GDPR-Compliant: The GDPR Explained

How to Ensure that Your Data Processing Practices Are GDPR-Compliant: The GDPR Explained In this article, we will discuss the main principles in Chapter Two of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which are the foundation of the GDPR and lay out the requirements for how organisations should collect, use, and store personal data. However, this article does not include any form of legal…

[akwyz]

Carrefour's AI Revolution: Enhancing Shopping Experience with OpenAI's GPT-4

Just had a conversation with my shopping cart. 🛒✨ It knew my budget, food preferences, & even suggested recipes! Thanks to #AI, #grocery shopping is no longer a chore, it's a chat. Are we in 2023 or 3023? 🚀 #Carrefour #OpenAI #FutureOfRetail

Carrefour, the French multinational retail corporation, has taken a significant step in advancing its digital strategy by deploying three novel tech solutions, all powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology. These innovations include an advice-giving chatbot named ‘Hopla’, interactive product descriptions, and support for purchasing procedures. A Personal Shopping Assistant: Meet Hopla As of 8 June,…

[mschelle]

Well hot damn if it wasn't enough for this loser to throw a public tantrum now he's going out of his way to follow predestrogen on other platforms and start harassing her there!!! You can't hide these Matt I got the screenshots lol!!!!!!

HE'S BLATANTLY LYING OUT OF HIS ASS!! SPREAD IT AROUND!! And also since she seems to be from Ireland even though I don't even know shit about eu laws from what little I do know this is a big violation of GDPR and should be reported as such!! https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rights-citizens/redress/what-should-i-do-if-i-think-my-personal-data-protection-rights-havent-been-respected_en

[thelawandmore]

Recent Developments in Data Privacy and Their Implications for Business 

Recent Developments in Data Privacy and Their Implications for Business

Data privacy is a hot topic in today’s digital world. Here are nine recent developments that changed the data privacy landscape and what they mean for businesses and consumers.  1. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018, creating a unified data protection framework across the EU and giving individuals more control over their personal data. The EU General…

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat Control in a nutshell (please reblog this, US people)

Find out more about Chat Control here TAKE ACTION HERE ! OR HERE Calling is much more efficient ! The latter link will redirect you to the official websites of your respective reps. Under the "read more", you will find what you need to say/write when contacting your reps. You will also find an alternate format of this comic,and I give explicit permission for people to translate it and spread it anywhere for awareness. Credit really not needed, I don't care about that rn Even if this is a EU proposal, I am urging Americans to also share this, since it goes hand in hand with KOSA. DON'T FORGET TO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER AGAINST CHAT CONTROL ! https://discord.com/invite/e7FYdYnMkS

(Latest update on Chat Control was the 12 september 2024) This is a little long, so feel free to shorten it as you wish : Subject line: "2022/0155(COD) Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the proposed introduction of "Chat Control" This measure poses a serious threat to the privacy and fundamental rights of all EU citizens and stands in stark contradiction to the core principles that the European Union seeks to uphold. The proposed Chat Control contravenes Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which guarantee the right to respect for private and family life and the protection of personal data. The indiscriminate surveillance of private messages without specific suspicion or cause directly violates these fundamental rights. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out stringent rules for the processing of personal data. The proposed indiscriminate surveillance and scanning of private messages before end-to-end encryption is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation enshrined in the GDPR. Specifically, Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, which govern the lawfulness and principles of data processing, would be violated by the introduction of such measures. The implementation of Client-Side Scanning (CSS) on devices means that all messages and files are scanned on the user's device before being encrypted and sent. This effectively nullifies the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and opens the door to misuse and additional security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the technical capability to scan such content could be exploited by malicious actors to circumvent or manipulate surveillance mechanisms. Such far-reaching surveillance measures not only endanger privacy but also freedom of expression. The knowledge that their private messages are being scanned and monitored could significantly restrict individuals' willingness to freely express themselves. Additionally, trust in digital communication platforms would be severely undermined. I urge you to take a strong stance against this disproportionate and unlawful measure. The privacy and digital rights of EU citizens must be safeguarded. It is imperative that we protect our fundamental rights and ensure transparency in the decision-making processes of our leaders. For more detailed information on the proposal and its implications, please refer to the following resource: Link to Netzpolitik article. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/rat-soll-chatkontrolle-durchwinken-werde-jetzt-aktiv/ Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. Sincerely, [Name] Art. 10 GG , Art. 8 & 11 EU Charta , Art. 8 EMRK (Alternate comic here V)

[fwoosheye]

OI! FACEBOOK USERS WHO HATE AI! GUESS WHAT!

META IS GOING TO FEED YOUR POSTS AND IMAGES AND COMMENTS TO THEIR AI!

From what I understand this is already being implemented for Americans, with no opt-out option, but there is apparently a form you can fill in to ask them to remove all your data.

For us in the EU, we can fill in a form to object to our stuff being added, but there are some things we need to pay extra attention to:

Meta has to approve of the objection — meaning that sending it in doesn't necessarily mean it will go through

In the country they want the ISO country code (e.g. SE for Sweden). I read that someone got it to work by writing Italy rather than Italia, but I am unsure if that works for all countries

EVEN IF YOUR OBJECTION IS APPROVED, YOUR STUFF CAN BE ADDED TO META AI IF SOMEONE WHO HASN'T OBJECTED TO META AI SHARE YOUR POST/IMAGES TO THEIR PAGE

A verification code will be sent to your email, so make sure you write in the email you use for fb correctly and be prepared to check the spamfolder

It's supposed to be implemented the 26th of June here, so do it asap

MAKE SURE TO MENTION GDPR!!!

I don't know what the situation about this is for people outside EU, so if you happens to know please add to this with whatever information you have!

Check the notifications on your fb account and you should find one from Meta with all the relevant links there!

I will also copy what I wrote in the form into the comments on this post (for easy copying) in case someone doesn't have the spoons to write their own reasons. It's far from perfect but it's better than not doing it at all.

Also I don't know if this includes Instagram, I couldn't see anything about it over there, but I imagine it does or will soon enough, so keep your eyes open for that too.

(Also, hate to be that person, but please reblog to spread awareness!)

[lover-of-mine]

Just wanted to let you know, the api that was used is hosted in Russia (and therefore isn't liable under GDPR). There have been many concerns associated with it regarding data privacy like, selling individuals' personal information, refusing to delete when a request is submitted, and so on. The legality of its activities might depend upon a country's laws but I think upon reading its terms and policy, most people would agree that it is unethical.

Gdpr is only liable inside the European Union regarding EU citizens. You're not saying what you think you are. Also, we're not selling information. But sure, you want a path that doesn't go through pullpush? Here you go!

[kef-meister]

Nintendo Music

I'll go ahead and say it - Nintendo is just weird. Earlier the year they posted a big FAQ on how piracy is evil and everyone's a criminal - because Nintendo loves that they have a following, but absolutely despises their fan-base.

Since then, we got the baffling Nintendo Alarmo - because I guess Nintendo saw the $99 clock apps on the eShop and figured they'd do one better ... and then since yesterday, Nintendo introduced ... Nintendo Music™?

I downloaded this thing and gave it a try. I've some information already available on the website and app to type down here just so it's in the same place - but also some first impressions and personal takes. Let's-a go.

Data Collection: As with any app, this thing wants your data. It's "the usual", such as what normally is available to apps; log-in info, what phone you use, location and app activity. I mention this, because knowing that your data will be collected and used means you can put a stop to it if necessary. That said, the data collected via the app can be completely deleted by request. (given that I'm in the EU, I'm hoping this is GDPR compliant) Side-note: I'm guessing this might be also be collecting data for Nintendo Alarmo themes. That seems like a Nintendo thing to do.

The App Itself Completely free to download and install, but needs a Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) membership to function. Opens the browser rather than going in-app for your log-in efforts. Feels a little sluggish. Looks and feels like a YouTube Music/Spotify baby. Also immediately tries to be cool by giving you 'character playlists'. I think that's oddly charming.

Music Selection Yeah, this is a meager selection. I think they'll be doing the thing where they will drip-feed more music, since they immediately ask you to turn notifications on when more music drops. So far we got: Switch: Pikmin 4 / PkMn Scarlet & Violet / Splatoon 3 / ACNH / Kirby Star Allies / Super Mario Odyssey / Mario Kart 8 DX / TLOZ: BotW Wii: Super Mario Galaxy / Wii Channels Nintendo DS: Tomodachi Collection / Nintendogs Gamecube: Metroid Prime Game Boy Advance: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade Nintendo 64: TLoZ: Ocarina of Time / Star Fox 64 SNES: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island / Donkey Kong Country Gameboy: Kirby's Dream Land / Dr.Mario NES: Metroid / Metroid (Famicom) / Mario Bros. The promotional material also lists F-Zero's "Mute City", so we'll see a drop soon enough.

What the app does/allows:

This thing's a streaming service, but does something incredibly un-Nintendo as a treat. I call it that, because Nintendo famously has floundered with a lot of online things .. but I am pleasantly surprised:

Allows song extensions up to an hour in-app (!)

Allows individual downloads for offline listening(!!)

Allows playing the music even when the app is in the background and if the screen is off(!!!). The last point is interesting, because while dedicated music apps tend to do that per default, the most used third-party method for streaming Nintendo's music needs you to pay a premium to do that.

Conclusion: I might not like that this is 'another app' in the pile of apps and distribution systems, but this is a start to solving Nintendo's distribution problem (see the bit about piracy at the top) - which went doubly so for their music. It makes it extra bizarre to me that they allow you to download tracks. Previously, either games had to have a 'music' feature, there had to be specific sales for OST's or people had to go for ... third-party methods.

If you have NSO, consider this app a bonus. I'm hoping this won't get enshittified within half a year.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk is a ‘promoter of evil,’ EU rule-of-law chief says

BRUSSELS — Elon Musk, unlike other tech bosses, "is not able to recognize good and evil,” a European Union top official said Wednesday.

The multibillionaire tech mogul and boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX is amplifying hatred, outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told POLITICO in an interview, calling him a “promoter of evil.”

Musk has been on a collision course with European officials, fighting regulators and governments on multiple fronts. The tech mogul bought Twitter in April 2022, rebranding it as X shortly after, and he has attracted criticism for his management of the platform, with European politicians and civil society saying he has allowed hate speech to fester on the site.

“We started to relativize evil, and he's helping it proactively. He's the promoter of evil,” Jourová said.

The Czech politician, who was the EU’s justice chief from 2014-2019 and has been in charge of “values and transparency” since 2019, has had regular contact with many of the world’s largest technology companies over the last decade on issues like privacy, disinformation and content moderation. 

Big tech companies have “monstrous power in their hands,” Jourová said. “I'm really scared by digital platforms in bad hands."

X is “the main hub for spreading antisemitism now,” Jourová said, adding that she warned ministers from EU capitals on Tuesday to be vigilant to the possibility of online antisemitism spilling over into the real world. 

“Now we are in the situation where the member states’ law enforcement powers have to protect the people who are under threat, under physical threat,” she said. “This is what I mean ... This new chapter, new intensity of antisemitism, where we don't see sufficient action from the side of the platforms.”

Jourová has never met Musk in person, but said that “even without this personal meeting, I would say that out of all the bosses I met, he is the only one who is not able to recognize good and evil.” 

The EU’s former internal market chief Thierry Breton did meet Musk in California in 2022, and since clashed with him publicly over Musk’s approach to online content moderation. 

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Regulation vs. innovation

Jourová also dismissed the increasingly popular narrative that Brussels' overregulation has stifled tech innovation.

The EU passed a raft of digital legislation over the last five years, leading some of the world’s largest technology companies to argue that they cannot launch AI tools and other innovative products in the bloc because they don’t know how the new laws work together or how they will be enforced. 

But innovation for innovation’s sake is not necessarily desirable, Jourová said: “We have to be sure that the innovations are developed to do good to people.”

She said she wondered why innovation was typically "described as something absolutely good, [and] regulations as something which is bad … It's not black and white."

Big tech companies’ vast profits should not be at the expense of Europeans, Jourová said — even if that means product-launch delays. “Nobody says that Google and others cannot introduce new technologies in Europe. Maybe, one, two months, half a year later than somewhere else, but we want to be sure,” she said. 

Jourová led work on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a landmark privacy regime that went into force in 2018 and remains one of the EU’s most famous — and infamous — laws. 

Though the EU recently passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, the GDPR often remains the main target of tech companies' ire, particularly because of how it is interpreted. The question of whether the law will need to be changed in the next five years is a key issue for incoming Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen, Jourová said. 

“I think in [terms of] GDPR, we will have to look again at how to better enforce under the principle of one continent, one law,” she said. 

Jourová, who is leaving Brussels after 10 years at the Berlaymont, joked that she was returning to Prague as a “dissident,” given she left her own ANO party, which has turned more illiberal under former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. 

The return of the Euroskeptic Babiš, who is currently leading the polls ahead of next year's Czech election, would strengthen the illiberal forces in the EU, given Babiš’ ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

Jourová dismissed rumors that she would start her own political movement to take on her former boss. Instead, she will return to her alma mater, Charles University in Prague, in a management and teaching role.

[mllemaenad]

Right, well, I wanted to write, so I'm going to do that, even if my wrists hurt. Things I will pay for later, but make me feel better now.

Have now listened to episodes 1 and 2 of The Magnus Protocol.

My first impression is that this is much worse than what was going on in The Magnus Archives.

The Magnus Institute was a private institution with no obvious access to other people's information (Magnus's occasional psychic spying notwithstanding). Most information it received seems to have at least been given willingly. There are a handful of instances of John forcing people to talk, yes, but not so many that I am constantly concerned for the privacy of London's citizens. Gertrude is said to have disliked compelling people to talk (Family Business), so while her tally very likely exceeds John's purely due to the length of time she was in the job, it's still probably not very high. It's impossible to account for the behaviour of previous archivists of course but, well, the whole place is set up to entice people in to tell their tales. I would hazard that most of the materiel in the archives was volunteered.

Even in cases where someone was forced – at least they knew about it, because they were there. The lady in Scrutiny who was so deeply disturbed by John's behaviour was also able to make that behaviour stop just by rolling up to The Magnus Institute and reporting it – which is a reasonably straightforward outcome, given the general weirdness of their world.

I don't mean to say that The Magnus Institute didn't do harm – it very obviously did. But even in terms of its final apocalypse, we're looking at a horror that lasted mere months (assuming a passage of time that broadly corresponds to the broadcasting schedule) before a group of disgruntled employees (and Georgie) burned the nightmare tower down, stabbed Magnus and reset reality. There were limitations to The Magnus Institute's reach, and Jonah Magnus's personal ambitions concluded with an utter, embarrassing flop by any reasonable estimation.

Here, though, you're looking at a government department with truly concerning access to people's data. The forum-based statement in First Shift is perhaps not too awful (forum threads can often be read by anyone, even if actually posting requires an account), but the earlier piece regarding the bereaved woman was a private email thread, and the story in Making Adjustments is drawn from a recording of a woman's session with her therapist. Sam calls out the massive invasion of privacy this sort of thing entails, but is shut down on the grounds that it's fine because they "work for the government".

Alice Ok, so looks like it's an email. Sam And I just… read it? Is that even legal? Alice Probably. We do work for the government. Sort of. Sam What about GDPR? Alice Look, Sam, I don't know what to tell you. This is the job. I've been doing it for years and there's never been any problems. Maybe ask Lena? She’d probably know. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

While it is too early to definitively establish the worldbuilding rules here:

In The Magnus Archives, giving a statement was functionally feeding an eldritch power

Gertrude Robinson took statements, but kept the archives themselves in a state of disarray, to impede Magnus's plans (Dwelling)

Much of The Magnus Archives played on the difference between knowing a thing and understanding it

The characters in The Magnus Protocol are not just collecting, but blindly categorising statements – they are organising them by keyword, but not encouraged to analyse what they see or hear – Alice notes that they are paid not to care (Making Adjustments)

At least in The Magnus Archives, making a statement tended to come with consequences: typically horrifying recurring nightmares

So you have to wonder – what consequences will there be for these people, who have had their stories stolen from them?

In terms of workplace horror, this is very much coming at it from the opposite direction. The Magnus Archives was about the horrible job you couldn't quit. Most people find themselves stuck in these for economic reasons rather than supernatural ones, although in fairness both Martin (Children of the Night) and Melanie (Dig) are explicitly called out as very much needing the work, but the characters are nevertheless stuck and constantly call back to the fact that they would absolutely quit – if only they could.

It ran on punishing hours and constant exhaustion, the expectation that you would take on tasks you were in no way qualified or trained for (this started with "archiving" and escalated quickly to "apocalypses"), the boss who expected you to "just know" things you couldn't possibly know at all, and a soul destroying amount of responsibility with little hope of advancement. The same person ran the institute since its founding, literally consuming his employees along the way, and if you wanted, say, to be Head Archivist, you were very much stuck waiting for the current occupant of the role to die.

It is significant that, with the noted exception of Eric Delano, all of Gertrude's assistants died on the job (some of them by her hand), and tallying John's assistants is a bit like listing off the wives of Henry VIII: dead, dead, dead, divorced, survived, status unknown. While the story leans on deaths for drama, it gets a lot of mileage out of using historical data, so characters stick around. It's weird for them to be actually gone.

The Magnus Protocol opens with Teddy quitting the OIAR to take a job in insurance. The very first thing you learn about this place is that people leave, and this idea is reinforced a number of times even in the first two episodes: Gwen is pressured to resign by Lena because she is "difficult", and Lena notes outright that, for most people, this job is strictly short term:

Lena Hmmm. I’ve always known you thought you were slumming it down here, but I never actually considered you might think of this as the first step of a career. Most people simply move on within 12 months or so. Gwen I’m not most people. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Moreover, Making Adjustments concludes first with a fraught conversation about possible redundancies and then with Alice accusing Sam (however playfully) of looking to "jump ship" when he's seen researching The Magnus Institute.

This is the horrible job you might lose tomorrow. While the threat in The Magnus Archives was that you were probably going to die in this job, here it leans more toward – if you didn't show up tomorrow, who would question it? People leave.

It is a night shift, for no clear reason – they're doing data entry on what definitely looks like non-essential information so why the hell can't they do that in the day? Employees are not encouraged to think about their work, and Gwen is criticised for favouring accuracy over speed. It is grimly impersonal, and what little solidarity there is appears to be hard won; it's noted, for instance, that Colin is really only social with Alice, and Alice seems committed to team camaraderie.

But above that is the sense that the employees are considered too insignificant to participate in what is really happening here. I mean, among other things, Colin seems to be having a wildly different workplace experience to everyone else.

Alice postulates that they are a fossilised department – one that only really exists because it's been forgotten – although even she notes that the theory only works if you don't poke at it too hard:

Sam I've no real idea what the OIAR even is. Alice You and everyone else. I’ve checked and there's not really much info on it. My current working theory is that maybe it got set up in the 70s, back when everyone was off their tits on LSD and giving ghost-hunters massive grants to wave crystals in graveyards. I reckon at some point they must have put together a small government department to, like, oversee the spending and monitor this stuff and no-one's noticed it's still going. Sam Makes sense. Alice As long as you don’t pay too much attention. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Even if that is a bit extreme, the general consensus is that their work goes nowhere and does nothing. Which fits broadly with the general lack of action and urgency in the department ... unless you happen to be Colin.

Alice Colin! There’s my guy! How's it hanging? Is it an app yet? Do we have a minimalist logo? I assume you’ve finished all the social features? Colin Don't you start. I swear I'm going to shove a cable down that prick's throat, pull it out his ministerial anus and floss him to death. ... Teddy Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here. Colin Christ, don’t say that. Teddy Even if his nibs lets you off the hook, which he won’t, you couldn’t bring yourself to just leave. Not 'til you’ve figured out all these fun little errors. Colin Or they finally kill me. ... Colin I already have to explain to some chinless inbred politician that we’re running on something as old as the goddamn Atari Falcon, now I’ve got some green little smartarse giving me lip for it too? Well you can take your funny little lines and shove them up – – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Colin, specifically, is suffering from ministerial oversight. A lot of it, apparently. Departments that only continue to exist because they've been forgotten don't typically have the responsible minister leaning on the IT manager. Not even on the boss – the IT guy. It's interesting because his specific level of stress and frustration seems more consistent with what was going on in The Magnus Archives than here.

And then, of course, there are the stories themselves. It's impossible not to note that the text-to-speech programs sound an awful lot like the protagonists of the previous series. Presumably this is plot relevant, or else it's a really distracting choice. It's impossible to state at this stage whether that means it actually is them or not, but assuming for the moment that it is (because it is not interesting to discuss other possibilities until they become interesting) then what they have to say seems noteworthy.

They are presumably reacting to Sam specifically (welcome to the cursed protagonist club, new guy!), possibly to the box he ticked during onboarding, and likely to whatever past trauma led him to this job in the first place. And both seem to be issuing a warning.

Norris/Martin tells a story that Gwen classifies as "reanimation", but I admit I'm not sure I agree. The thing sounds like an iteration of the Anglerfish monster.

Norris/Harriet Winstead “Arthur? Is that you?” And that voice I have loved for twenty years answered: “Some of him.” – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Archivist Are you the same Sarah Baldwin that disappeared in Edinburgh in August 2006? Sarah Some of her. Skin. A few memories. Not on the inside. – The Magnus Archives: Return to Sender

That feels at least in part like an Easter egg – no newcomer is going to recognise the Anglerfish – but it is the crossing of the boundary: this is the first true story they heard, and proof that there is something very wrong with the world. And presumably the themes of grief and loss that pervade the story would relate pretty strongly to Martin's whole ... situation. I'm assuming nobody here chose to be a text-to-speech program.

Chester/John, meanwhile, issues a fairly stern warning about The Magnus Institute. The canary in the coal mine is a bit on-the-nose as a metaphor, sure, but if I were trying to explain to someone what was wrong with that place, I would likely also be blunt. The rough thing, though, is that quite explicitly no one heeds the warning: while the "removed" image is not described it pretty clearly illustrated RedCanary's fate. It's not just that the canary died down the mine. It's that it died in vain, because no one understood what killed it. And of course, it does pique Sam's interest to the point that he starts digging in to what happened. I'm disinclined to believe that curiosity is bad in these stories – if anything, John's issue was that he could never find out the things he needed to know fast enough to make a good decision. But there is a point there ... if you start looking into things, you have to be prepared to deal with them.

The third one, in Making Adjustments seems to be playing somewhat on The Picture of Dorian Gray: Sam and Gwen start the episode by doing practice runs on classification using classic horror, and the story, when it begins, draws on that confusion between art and subject. You can line Dorian up beside Dracula and Frankenstein any day. But the bigger point seems to be that the catalyst for this happened on camera:

Daria Before I could reply they hit a button on their set-up and suddenly we were live streaming with lights in my eyes and their arm tight around my shoulders. I don’t remember much of what they said to their viewers, but they kept telling everyone how lucky I was whilst they dragged me into the chair. – The Magnus Protocol: Making Adjustments

There are nested violations in this story: Daria expected a photo shoot, but at no point agreed to be tattooed on camera. Beyond that, the story she told in private to her therapist is now being recorded and catalogued by the OIAR. And whatever happened to Daria, this "Ink5oul" person seems to have profited by it, and by things like it.

I must admit, I'm not much of a "what entity is this" person, because as far as I could tell the general consensus on that in general fell between "that's arbitrary" and "all of them, probably, if only by their conspicuous absence". That sort of thing is very useful when talking about the people and their particular obsessions – if Simon Fairchild turned up, for example, you knew exactly what sort of aggravating bullshit you were in for – but worrying too much about the exact nature of a supernatural manifestation rarely leads anywhere useful.

I am more interested in the broader implications of how the story is told. In The Magnus Archives, the characters read the stories aloud – and usually adopted the persona, and sometimes even the accent – of the original statement giver. That had supernatural implications, of course, but also played into the broader themes of the story: John is very much invested in the individuals. The tragedy of Jane Prentiss, the mystery of Gertrude Robinson – these are his obsessions. Pretty much the only point he scores in his conversation with Leitner (The Librarian) is being able to instantly spot a passing reference to Gerard Keay: John is crap at the cosmology, but he's been paying attention to the people. Many of the recurring characters are very dead by the time the story starts, but they are kept alive in the narrative because the living characters step into their shoes, and care about what they did and what became of them.

Here, though, there is built in distance between the active protagonists and the individual horror stories. They largely don't even read them – Alice says she "skim(s) the case for keywords" (Making Adjustments) and otherwise tries to ignore what is happening. When a story is read aloud it is done by the text-to-speech programs, and they, as John and Martin did, adopt the personas of the authors in a way that sounds much more fluid than software from the 90s should be capable of. When the story comes straight from the source, it is not told to Sam or Alice or Gwen, but to someone else entirely. There is a reason for the audience to connect with the stories – from that external perspective you're getting pretty much the same thing you did in The Magnus Archives – but the actual characters have no reason to connect, or even to truly listen or empathise with what they're hearing, and doing so is regarded as a mistake.

Which makes you wonder – what might you miss when you're not paying attention to the people?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

EU to Facebook: 'Drop Dead'

A leak from the European Data Protection Board reveals that the EU’s top privacy regulator is about to overrule the Irish Data Protection Commission and declare Facebook’s business model illegal, banning surveillance-based ads without explicit consent:

https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-win-personalized-ads-facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-declared-illegal

In some ways, this is unsurprising. Since the GDPR’s beginning, it’s been crystal clear that the intention of the landmark privacy regulation was to extinguish commercial surveillance and ring down the curtain on “consent theater” — the fiction that you “agree” to be spied on by clicking “I agree” or just by landing on a web-page that has a link to some fine-print.

Under the GDPR, the default for data-collection is meaningful consent, meaning that a company that wants to spy on you and then sell or use the data it gathers has to ask you about each piece of data they plan to capture and each use they plan to make of it.

These uses have to be individually enumerated, and the user has to actively opt into giving up each piece of data and into each use of that data. That means that if you’re planning to steal 700 pieces of information from me and then use it in 700 ways, you need to ask me 1,400 questions and get a “Yes” to each of them.

What’s more, I have to be given a single tickbox at the start of this process that says, “No to all,” and then I have to be given access to all the features of the site or service.

The point of this exercise is to reveal consent theater for the sham it is. For all that apologists for commercial surveillance insist that “people like ads, so long as they’re well-targeted” and “the fact that people use high-surveillance services like Facebook shows a ‘revealed preference’ for being spied on,” we all know that no one likes surveillance.

There’s empirical proof of this! When Apple added one-click tracker opt-out on its Ios platform, 96% of users opted out, costing Facebook more than $10b in the first year (talk about a ‘revealed preference!’) (of course, Apple only opted those users out of tracking by its rivals, and secretly continued highly invasive, nonconsenual tracking of its customers):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Properly enforced, the GDPR would have upended the order of the digital world: any argument about surveillance between product managers at a digital firm would have been settled in favor of privacy, because the pro-privacy side could argue that no one would give consent, and the very act of asking would scare off lots of users.

But the GDPR wasn’t properly enforced, thanks to structural problems with European federalism itself. The first line of GDPR enforcement came from privacy regulators in whatever country a privacy-violator called home. That meant that when Big Tech companies violated the GDPR, they’d have to account for themselves to the privacy regulator in Ireland.

For multinational corporations, Ireland is what old-time con-artists used to call a “made town,” where the cop on the beat is in on the side of the criminals. Ireland’s decision to transform itself into a tax haven means that it can’t afford to upset the corporations that fly Irish flags of convenience and maintain the pretense that all their profits are floating in a state of untaxable grace in the Irish Sea.

That’s because there are plenty of other EU countries that compete with Ireland in the international race to the bottom on corporate governance: Malta, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Cyprus, etc (and of course, there’s post-Brexit UK, where the plan is to create an unregulated haven for the worst, wealthiest companies in the world).

All this means that seeking Irish justice from a corporation that wronged you is like asking a court in Moscow to punish an oligarch’s commercial empire on your behalf. Irish regulators are either “dingo babysitters” (guards in league with the guarded) or resource-starved into ineffectual torpor.

That’s how Facebook got away with violating the GDPR for so many years. The company hid behind the laughable fairy-tale that it didn’t need our consent to spy on us because it had a “legitimate purpose” for its surveillance, namely, that it was contractually obliged to spy on us thanks to the “agreement” we clicked on when we signed up for the service.

That is, you and Facebook had entered into a contract whereby Facebook promised you that it would spy on you, and if it didn’t spy on you, it would be violating that promise.

Har.

Har.

Har.

But while the GDPR has a structural weakness — allowing corporations to choose to be regulated in countries that can’t afford to piss them off — it also has a key strength: the private right of action, that is, the right of individuals to sue companies that violate the law, rather than having to convince a public prosecutor to take up their case.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

The private right of action is vital to any privacy regulation, which is why companies fight it so hard. Whenever a privacy bill with a private right of action comes up, they tell scare-stories about “ambulance chasers” who’ll “clog up the system,” trotting out urban legends like the McDonald’s Hot Coffee story:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

But here we are, in the last days of 2022, and the private right of action is about to do what the Irish regulators wouldn’t do: force Facebook to obey the law. For that, we can thank Max Schrems and the nonprofit he founded, noyb.

Schrems, you may recall, is the Austrian activist, who, as a Stanford law student, realized that EU law barred American tech companies from sending their surveillance data on Europeans to US data-centers, which the NSA and other spy agencies treated as an arm of their own surveillance projects:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/16/text-adventures-resurgent/#nein

Schrems brought a case against the Irish regulator to the EU’s top privacy authority, arguing that it had failed its duty by ruling that Facebook’s “contractual obligation” excuse held water. According to the leaked report, Schrems has succeeded, which means, once again, Facebook’s business model is illegal.

Facebook will doubtless appeal, but the writing is on the wall here: it’s the end of the line for surveillance advertising in Europe, an affluent territory with 500m+ residents. This decision will doubtless give a tailwind to other important privacy cases in the EU, like Johnny Ryan’s case against the ad-tech consortium IAB over its “audience taxonomy” codes:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/16/inside-the-clock-tower/#inference

It’s also likely good news for Schrems’ other ongoing cases, like the one he’s brought against Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out-here-everything-hurts/#noyb

Facebook has repeatedly threatened to leave the EU if it is required to stop breaking the law:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/22/uncivvl/#fb-v-eu

This is a pretty implausible threat, growing less plausible by the day. The company keeps delivering bad news to investors, who are not mollified by Mark Zuckerberg’s promise to rescue the company by convincing all of humanity to spend the rest of their lives as highly surveilled, legless, sexless, low-polygon cartoon characters:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/12/06/why-meta-platforms-stock-dove-today/

Zuckerberg and his entire senior team have seen their net worth plummet with Meta’s share price, and that means the company needs to pay engineers with actual dollars, rather than promises of shares, which kills the massive wage-bill discount the company has enjoyed. This is not a company that can afford to walk away from Europe!

Between Apple’s mobile (third-party) tracker-blocking and the EU calling time on surveillance ads, things are looking grim for Facebook. You love to see it! But things could get even worse, and soon, thanks to the double-edged sword of “network effects.”

Facebook is a network effects business: people join the service to socialize with the people who are already there — then more people join to socialize with them. But what network effects give, they can also take away: a service that gets more valuable when a new user signs up loses value when that user leaves.

This is beautifully explained in danah boyd’s “What if failure is the plan?” which recounts boyd’s experiences watching MySpace unravel as key nodes in its social graph disappeared when users quit: “Failure of social media sites tends to be slow then fast”:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

Facebook long understood this, which is why it spent years creating artificial “switching costs” — penalties it could impose on users who quit, such as the loss of their family photos:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

This is why Facebook and other tech giants are so scared of interoperability, and why they are so furious about the new EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will force them to allow new services to connect to their platforms, so that users who quit Big Tech won’t have to lose their friends or data:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises

An interoperable Facebook would make it easy to leave social media by removing the penalties Facebook imposes on its disloyal users, and the EU’s privacy framework means that when they flee to a smaller safe haven, they won’t have to worry about commercial surveillance:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

But what about advertising-supported media? Sure, being spied on sucks, but a subscription-first media landscape is a world where “the truth is paywalled, but the lies are free”:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalled-but-the-lies-are-free/

Ironically, killing surveillance ads is good news for ad-driven media. Surveillance-based ad-targeting is nowhere near as effective as Google, Facebook and the other ad-tech companies claim (these companies are compulsive liars, it would be amazing if the only time they told the truth is when they were boasting about their products!):

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

And consent-theater or no, targeted ads reach fewer users every day, thanks to ad- blockers, AKA, “the biggest boycott in world history”:

https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/

And when a publisher does manage to display a targeted ad, they get screwed. The Googbook dupololy is a crooked affair, with the two tech companies illegally colluding (via the Jedi Blue conspiracy) to divert money from publishers to their own pockets:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/11/google-meta-jedi-blue-eu-uk-antitrust-probes/

Targeted ads are a cesspit of ad-fraud. 15% of all ad revenues are just unaccounted for:

https://twitter.com/swodinsky/status/1511172472762163202

The remaining funds aren’t any more trustworthy. Ad-tech is a bezzle (“the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it”):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/

As Tim Hwang foretold in his essential Subprime Attention Crisis, the pretense that targeted ads are wildly effective has been slowly but surely losing ground to the wider awareness of the fraud behind the system, and a reckoning is at hand:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

Experiments with contextual ads (ads based on the content of the page you’re looking at, not on your behavior and demographics) have found them to about as effective in generated clicks and sales as surveillance ads.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/29/taken-in-context/#creep-me-not

But this is misleading. Contextual ads don’t require consent opt-in (because they’re not based on your data) and they don’t drive users to install blockers the way creepy surveillance ads do, so lots more people will see a contextual ad than a surveillance one. Thus, even if contextual ads generate slightly less money per reader or viewer, they generate far more money overall, because they are aren’t blocked.

Even better for publishers: contextual ads don’t erode their own rate cards. Today, when you visit a high-quality publisher like the Washington Post, many ad brokers bid to show you an ad, but only one wins the auction. However, all the others have tagged you as a “Washington Post reader,” and they can sell that to bottom-feeder junk sites. That is, they can collude with Tabooleh or its rivals to offer advertisers a chance to advertise to Post readers at a fraction of what the Post charges. Lather, rinse, repeat, and the Post’s own ad revenues are drained.

This doesn’t apply with contextual ads. Indeed, none of the tech giants’ much-vaunted “data advantage” — the largely overstated value of knowing what you did online 10 or 20 years ago, the belief in which keeps new companies out of the market — applies to context ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/11/halflife/#minatory-legend

The transformative power of banning surveillance advertising goes beyond merely protecting our privacy. It also largely answers the case for “link taxes” (pseudo-copyright systems that let giant media companies decide who can link to them and charge for the privilege).

The underlying case for link taxes, snippet taxes, etc, is that Big Tech is stealing the news media’s content (by letting their users talk about and quote the news), when the reality is that Big Tech is stealing their money (through ad-fraud):

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-isnt-stealing-news-publishers-content-a97306884a6b

Unrigging the ad-tech market is a much better policy than establishing a link-tax, like the Democrats are poised to do with their Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA):

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2022/12/06/jcpa-opponents-spring-into-action-to-block-ndaa-inclusion-00072602

It’s easy to understand why the monopoly/private-equity-dominated news industry wants JCPA, rather than a clean ad market. The JCPA just imposes a tax on the crooked ad-tech giants that is paid to the largest media companies, while a fair ad market would reward the media outlets that invested most in news (and thus in expensive, unionized news-gathering reporters).

Indeed, the JCPA only works if the ad-tech market remains corrupt: the excess Big Tech rents that Big News wants to claim here are the product of a rigged system. Unrig the system and there won’t be any money to pay the link tax with.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_%2841118883004%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A theater proscenium. Over the proscenium, in script, are the words 'Consent Theatre.' On the screen is an image of Mark Zuckerberg standing in front of the words 'Data Privacy.' He is gesturing expansively. A targeting reticle is centered on his face. The reticle is made of the stars from the EU flag.]

[margareth-lv]

👑 The Royal Family 👑

Caution: the contents of this post should not be seen by those who are hypersensitive to 🧛🏻‍♂️.

Ladies, beware!

☣️☣️☣️

My post below is kind of… weird,  I know, but still, I want to share my thoughts with you.

The whole story was actually quite bizarre, thus my analysis couldn't be anything but, well, strange. And as I went AWOL for almost a year I’m coming today with some outdated news, let’s say to celebrate the king’s coronation last Saturday.

(All I want to say is that you read it at your own risk)

One more warning: I’ve posted below a photo of 🧛🏻‍♂️. Please, be warned.

I’ve also posted a „photo” of Baby Augustus, but his “image” was so heavily (and badly) photoshopped, that I don’t feel bad about sharing it on my blog.

So, as you can guess I want to discuss with you damage control post-funeral photo published, supposedly, in Irish Daily Mirror one day after the funeral, but made public five months after, in January 2023.

You know, from the legal point of view, if it was a REAL funeral photo with a REAL baby image published without the consent of the family, it wolud have been removed from internet months ago. It’s not such a big deal even for an aspiring lawyer. Baby’s image (apart from rules of sharing images with or without consent of baby’s parents) is considered as a personal data. So, as Ireland is a member state of the European Union, the GDPR (data protection rules) applies there. It means that a short request to cease the infringements would end the case.

But the photo, despite of everything, saw the light of day five months after it was taken.

You don’t have to be a genius to come to the conclusion that it was meant to go public.

What a creepy family, indeed, The Balfes.

By the way, poor quality of work in Photoshop on Baby Augustus photo reminds me the story of,  if you'll excuse me, failed “Potato Jesus” (aka “Monkey Christ”) restoration, a certain amateur restoration job that gone terribly wrong. 

Making long story short, the painting of Jesus wearing a crown was given a fresh lick of paint by an elderly local resident of a small village in Spain and in the end the face appeared to have been strangely smeared (just like Baby Augustus 😉). The result of the botched restoration spawned a photoshop meme:

(Anyway, the depth of the image of “Potato Jesus” is comparable to Baby Augustus “photo”, best proof of lack of skills in Photoshop. Caitríona’s PR department never bothered to pick a guy with any talent, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN).

And now…

☀️

Here Comes the Sun.

The Royal Family in all its unflinching glory:

⬇️⬇️⬇️

No, this wasn’t my idea.

Someone wrote on Tumblr that Baby Augustus was strikingly similar to prince William.

Yup, he really was. As if he was William’s twin brother.

… or younger brother who wears old clothes of his big bro.

And why on earth the whole family looks like a cost-reduced version of the royal family?

You know, I can’t help thinking that there's more than just a coincidental similarity in these photos.

Another conspiracy theory.

I'm tired.

💁🏻‍♀️

[May 8, 2023]