#YouTube has ‘protections’ for users speech that it breaks all the time we know this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pretty-weird-ideas · 11 months ago

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Ok, so someone in the replies was asking me if you should use AO3 more to be disruptive or stop using it altogether. My response is, if you are going to continue using AO3 to post, 1) Post within the fandom-only rule to catch most readers off guard with information. It is much smarter to put information in already-done fics. Split a fic into two chapters so that your fic shows up top on the Latest Date filter, and fill the latter end of the chapter with important information about the OTW's racism. There is not enough power in the people who know about this to actively overwhelm the servers or cost them obscene amounts of money right now. The answer is to get a bunch of other fans (who could help you tip that scale LATER) who don't understand or know about this to get angry and speak out.

But the real power isn't on AO3, once again it's important to note that AO3 isn't algorithm-powered and is entirely emboldened by NICHE. That is NOT what we want here if we want to actually pressure AO3, because if they were willing to turn off comments, they are more than willing to take down fic if not knock around some accounts, let's be real. I wouldn't be surprised if some writers were suspended this week over breaking the fiction-only rule for speaking out about this.

The real power is in off-site collaboration and word-of-mouth spreading. Tiktok, Tumblr, and YouTube are hubs for fandom, especially multifandom AO3 content. If you want a massive amount of people to be able to spread this about AO3 and convince AO3 to change their behavior (or at least address it) you have to go to places where a majority of fans are, and that's on Tiktok and Tumblr. Then genuinely get these people angry. A majority of users are not going to see a rogue fic with ultra-specific tags, but multifandom cultural hubs will absolutely sit down and listen.

The answer, as it has always been with systemic issues in niche settings... is public shaming

That and calling for refunds of donations if you made them. I voted for the anti-racism campaigning last election (only for it to be uncontested) and I think it would be very bothersome if some of the donors... made some interesting emails and calls.... asking for their money back... Wouldn't that SUCK?

The only place to hit them where it hurts is word of mouth and reputation. They have a reputation, at least among white women, of a beautiful free speech site that protects ALL people, when in reality this is not very accurate. Shattering that illusion to casual audiences is what will actively cause a change in tune.

The "Place": Tiktok and Tumblr

The "Time": generalized multifandom spaces such as the AO3, fandom, fanfiction, etc tags where you have a 10-minute limit or an unlimited text limit.

Reasons

There is a high possibility that they will wait WEEKS if not MONTHS until they release their comments again

There's a high likelihood that they kneecap if not cancel or "suspiciously move" their meetings elsewhere to stop people from joining and complaining about this

That means the time to act is recent and is in the court of public opinion rather than pestering AO3 directly. We need to make it so that when you search up AO3, off of AO3, this is apparent and comes up. Fans search up AO3 on Twitter/Tiktok/Tumblr and the first thing they're blasted with is racism towards their volunteers and users. It shouldn't be hidden.

Btw, in regards to the anti-Palestinian OTW issue, "You can still use AO3" doesn't mean "You can uncritically use AO3, tell all your friends how amazing AO3 is, and then watch as your friends and followers donate to AO3 in droves while you blankly stare!". It means you can use AO3 while spreading awareness about its racist mistreatment of volunteers.

And again, nobody is holding a gun to your head to use AO3, country girls have made do, y'all. FFnet, Wattpad, Squideworld, etc. Get honest, get real. A nonprofit needs you to put pressure on it externally. That, or it needs its users to leave in droves, it needs volunteers being pressured to leave as well and clean up the place. And if you're a true doomer about it... there is nothing wrong with LEAVING.

Acting as if AO3 is the Roman Empire, while actively not protecting it is silly. I'm tired of seeing white folks talk about systemic issues while feeding the flames of it and then getting shocked when they get burned again.

And that's being nice on account of how I feel about OP distinctly acting shocked and angered that other disillusioned fans who were victimized by AO3's racism problem spoke about the racism in the comments of the post.

#ao3 #fandom racism #ao3 racism #otw racism

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davebuckleslefthand · 3 years ago

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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Big Tech welcomes (some) regulation

You know how the Curse of the Monkey's paw works: a cursed object grants all of your wishes, but in the worst way possible: "be careful what you wish for."

That's what we're living through with Big Tech right now.

I'm all for regulating Big Tech, but not all regulation is created equal. Some regulation can dampen the power of Big Tech, while other regulation can make it permanent, even creating powerful stakeholders for monopolies within government.

Every monopolist's first preference is to be totally unregulated, but every monopolist's SECOND preference is to be regulated in a way that only a monopolist can comply with, thus foreclosing on the possibility of competition from an as-yet-nonexistent upstart.

Look at AT&T, or, as it was known in its monopolistic glory days, "The Bell System." From its earliest days, AT&T was a bully, pulling all kinds of dirty tricks on small carriers and rural telephone co-ops that grew out of the New Deal electricity co-ops.

Regulators and the DoJ often had stern words for AT&T, and at various times, the company was subjected to legal penalties and court-ordered conduct remedies to make it behave.

But this was as far as it all went: no one was going to break up AT&T, take away the power it was abusing. AT&T was too important, "too big to fail," part of the national emergency and security infrastructure.

AT&T leveraged the fact that cops or fire marshalls could (and did) coopt its infrastructure to argue for special rules to protect the Bell System, because if nefarious competitors were to compromise the system, America couldn't fight crime, fires, floods and other disasters.

Which is how it was that AT&T was able to get the government to ban connecting anything to the Bell System that they hadn't manufactured. It's hard to overstate how ridiculous and abusive this rule was, but here are a couple important court cases that give a taste.

Take the Hush-A-Phone, a plastic cup that fit over your mouthpiece to make it harder for people to listen in or reading your lips. AT&T argued that attaching a plastic cup to a phone handset put America itself in danger and must be banned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hush-A-Phone_Corp._v._United_States

Or the Carterfone, a gadget that let you retransmit phone audio over short-range radio, so that ranch-hands could take calls when they were out on the range.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone#Landmark_regulatory_decision

Hush-A-Phone and Carterfone represent the endpoint of AT&T's venality, the instances in which the company overreached so thoroughly that a court finally limited its power. But they are also emblematic of the costs AT&T exacted from its customers.

Before these decisions, AT&T customers had to rent phones, paying for them dozens or hundreds of times over. To make things worse, AT&T used its regulated monopoly status to block innovators, holding back the answering machine, the switchboard and (crucially) the modem.

By 1956, AT&T's conduct was so odious that the DoJ was ready to break it up. But at the last instant, AT&T got a stay of execution: the Pentagon intervened to say that without AT&T, the US would not be able to prosecute the war in Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System#Kingsbury_Commitment

AT&T had been "punished" for its prior bad acts by being made a de-facto, privatized arm of the state, and now the state was intervening to keep AT&T intact. It worked. AT&T stayed intact for another quarter-century, during which time its conduct steadily worsened.

This is what happens when we "tame" monopolies instead of breaking them up: the monopolist makes some cosmetic changes to its conduct, coopts its regulators, and reverts to its wicked ways as soon as the attention shifts, using its monopoly profits to fight any consequences.

Today, there are many proposals to fix Big Tech, but far too often, these proposals start from the perspective that Big Tech is permanent and there is no need to consider the way that new rules would impact potential competitors, because they're already doomed.

Last year's EU Copyright Directive, for example, with its mandate for expensive copyright filters for online services (how expensive? Google spend $100m developing Contentid, a toy version of what the EU rule requires).

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/european-copyright-directive-what-it-and-why-has-it-drawn-more-controversy-any

Not only is this a disaster because filters are garbage and block all kinds of legitimate speech - it's doubly awful because it prevents competitors from entering Big Tech's markets that might be more respectful of their users - co-ops, EU-based SMEs, etc.

And it makes Google and FB and other Big Tech companies an arm of the state, part of the apparatus of copyright enforcement (not just copyright, the EU's Terror Reg makes them filter "extremist" content too).

And it prevents a future Hush-a-Phone moment for Big Tech: Youtube will say that if it is responsible for fighting extremism and infringement, it MUST block competitors who interoperate with its service to provide fairer, better alternatives.

Tellingly, while Youtube and Facebook started off as staunch opponents of a filter mandate in the Copyright Directive, they quickly switched sides and began arguing in FAVOR of filters - after all, they already had filters, and nascent competitors did not.

Big Tech's latest cursed monkey paw moment comes from Amazon, who, after losing key court cases over selling dangerously defective goods stop arguing that it wasn't responsible for its sellers' goods.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-jeff-bezos-is-worth-200-billion

Instead, they started demanding that state legislative proposals, like California's AB 3262, be made FAR stricter, so that just making an ecommerce platform (like the scrappy Canadian Amazon rival Shopify does) makes you responsible for anything sold on that platform.

It's gonna be burdensome for Amazon to check out all of its sellers' goods, but Amazon is arguably the only company with enough excess capital to do that checking, and they've got a patent on forcing sellers to expose their entire supply-chain in machine-readable formats.

Which means that Amazon - who are under antitrust scrutiny for spying on their sellers and then knocking off their best products and driving them out of business - could be LEGALLY OBLIGATED to spy on its sellers.

Which means that if the DoJ or Congress decides to force Amazon to STOP spying on its sellers, they will have to override California's consumer protection rule that makes Amazon undertake this surveillance.

It also means that sellers who are worried that Amazon will spy on them in order to drive them out of business will have few (or no) alternatives to giving Amazon its data, because Shopify and other ecommerce platforms CAN'T comply with California's proposed liability rule.

Amazon is REALLY good at this kind of regulator monkeypawing. For a long time, Amazon maintained the fiction that all its European digital goods sales were consummated in Luxembourg, where there was no VAT. That let it sell ebooks for 20% less than, say, UK competitors.

When the EU decided to fix this, Amazon enthusiastically cooperated, producing a harmonized VAT rule that only the largest companies could comply with: a rule that required sellers in the EU to gather and retain two pieces of address-confirming info from every customer.

Then sellers would have to calculate how much VAT to charge based in 28 different countries' VAT laws, and would have to remit that VAT every quarter, regardless of how small that remittance was. I was living in the UK then, and selling my ebooks online.

The VAT rule meant that if I collected EU0.01 from a single Polish customer in a quarter, I would have to pay to wire the Polish tax authorities EU0.01, and pay accountants to prepare the paperwork. The first quarter, I paid £750 to remit £17 in VAT.

Of course, there was a way to get around all of this! All I needed to do was shut down my independent ebook store and shift to selling on Amazon, and pay them 30% of every penny I brought in. Amazon has a whole building full of accountants and programmers to make that work.

(The issue became moot when I moved to the US and shuttered my UK Limited Company; today you can shop at my ebook store and I don't have to collect VAT at all)

https://craphound.com/shop

There are monkey's paw proposals everywhere, like killing CDA230, which shields tech platforms from liability for users' speech - sure, the Big Tech platforms wouldn't like to pay for more moderators and filters, but in return they'd get to wipe out all small rivals.

But the monkey's paw is not inevitable. There are plenty of ways to make Big Tech less powerful while encouraging alternatives, including co-ops and nonprofits. Instead of copyright filters, we could have blanket licenses that directly pay artists.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/plan-pay-artists-encourage-competition-and-promote-free-expression

Instead of moderation mandates, we could have interop mandates that let users choose what is and isn't allowed in their own conversations:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/27/cult-chalk/#eff-eu

And, as Matt Stoller points out in his article on AB3262, we don't need Amazon's extensions to an otherwise sensible consumer protection statute that would extend liability to Shopify - we can craft a rule that catches Amazon's bad conduct alone.

If we are going to tame Big Tech, let us tame them - by reducing their power, not by demanding that they exercise it wisely. If Big Tech has too much power, let's take some of it away - we'll never get them to use it for good.

We can (try to) fix Big Tech or we can fix the internet. Big Tech will either figure it out and survive or it won't. Their products are optional, but we NEED the internet.

#pluralistic

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Saturday, May 1, 2021

Student loan debts (WSJ) U.S. taxpayers could ultimately be on the hook for roughly a third of the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. This could amount to more than $500 billion, exceeding what taxpayers lost on the saving-and-loan crisis 30 years ago. While defaulted student loans can’t cause the federal government to go bankrupt the way bad mortgage lending upended banks during the financial crisis, they expose a similar problem: Billions of dollars lent based on flawed assumptions about whether the money can be repaid.

Costa Rica to close non-essential businesses next week over COVID-19 (Reuters) Costa Rica will for the next week close non-essential businesses, including restaurants and bars, across the center of the country due to a sharp increase in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations, the government said on Thursday. From May 3-9, restaurants, bars, department stores, beauty salons, gyms and churches must close in 45 municipalities in central Costa Rica, where almost half the population lives and over two-thirds of new cases have been registered. The government will also impose travel restrictions during the week.

After a Year of Loss, South America Suffers Worst Death Tolls Yet (NYT) In the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, the mayor is warning residents to brace for “the worst two weeks of our lives.” Uruguay, once lauded as a model for keeping the coronavirus under control, now has one of the highest death rates in the world, while the grim daily tallies of the dead have hit records in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru in recent days. Even Venezuela, where the authoritarian government is notorious for hiding health statistics and any suggestion of disarray, says that coronavirus deaths are up 86 percent since January. As vaccinations mount in some of the world’s wealthiest countries and people cautiously envision life after the pandemic, the crisis in Latin America—and in South America in particular—is taking an alarming turn for the worse, potentially threatening the progress made well beyond its borders. Last week, Latin America accounted for 35 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the world, despite having just 8 percent of the global population, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

France Proposes More Surveillance to Hunt for Potential Terrorists (NYT) The French government, responding to several attacks over the past seven months, presented a new anti-terrorism bill on Wednesday that would allow intense algorithmic surveillance of phone and internet communications and tighten restrictions on convicted terrorists emerging from prison. “There have been nine attacks in a row that we could not detect through current means,” Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, told France Inter radio. “We continue to be blind, doing surveillance on normal phone lines that nobody uses any longer.” The draft bill, prepared by Mr. Darmanin, came in a political and social climate envenomed by Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, who applauded a letter published this month by 20 retired generals that described France as being in a state of “disintegration” and warned of a possible coup in thinly veiled terms. Published in a right-wing magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, the generals’ letter portrayed a country ravaged by violence, swept by hatred and prey to subversive ideologies bent on stirring a racial war. “If nothing is done,” they said, “laxity will spread inexorably across society, provoking in the end an explosion and the intervention of our active-service comrades in the perilous protection of our civilization’s values.”

Toll of Afghan ‘forever war’ (AP) After 20 years, America is ending its “forever war” in Afghanistan. Announcing a firm withdrawal deadline, President Joe Biden cut through the long debate, even within the U.S. military, over whether the time was right. Starting Saturday, the last remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops will begin leaving, to be fully out by Sept. 11 at the latest. Another debate will likely go on far longer: Was it worth it? Since 2001, tens of thousands of Afghans and 2,442 American soldiers have been killed, millions of Afghans driven from their homes, and billions of dollars spent on war and reconstruction. The U.S. and NATO leave behind an Afghanistan that is at least half run directly or indirectly by the Taliban—despite billions poured into training and arming Afghan forces to fight them. Riddled with corruption and tied to regional warlords, the U.S.-backed government is widely distrusted by many Afghans.

In India’s devastating coronavirus surge, anger at Modi grows (Washington Post) As he surveyed the thousands of people gathered at an election rally in eastern India on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared jubilant. “Everywhere I look, as far as I can see, there are crowds,” he said, his arms spread wide. “You have done an extraordinary thing.” At the time, India was recording more than 200,000 coronavirus cases a day. In the western state of Maharashtra, oxygen was running short, and people were dying at home because of a shortage of hospital beds. In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, crematoriums were being overwhelmed by the dead. For Modi, the most powerful Indian prime minister in five decades, it is a moment of reckoning. He is facing what appears to be the country’s biggest crisis since independence. Modi’s own lapses and missteps are an increasing source of anger. As coronavirus cases skyrocketed, Modi continued to hold huge election rallies and declined to cancel a Hindu religious festival that drew millions to the banks of the Ganges River. Modi swept to a landslide reelection victory in 2019, offering Indians a muscular brand of nationalism that views India as a fundamentally Hindu country rather than the secular republic envisioned by its founders. He has cultivated an image as a singular leader capable of bold decisions to protect and transform the country. Now that image is “in tatters,” said Vinay Sitapati, a political scientist at Ashoka University in the northern Indian state of Haryana. Modi and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) built a formidable machine for winning elections, Sitapati said, but their mind-set of continuous campaigning has come “at the cost of governance.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia Edge Toward Détente (Foreign Policy) Iran’s relationship with Saudi Arabia could be entering “a new chapter of interaction and cooperation,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Thursday, as the two countries signal a rapid mending of diplomatic ties. Khatibzadeh’s comments came in response to an interview Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave to state television this week, when he said that problems between the regional rivals could be overcome and “good relations” could soon prevail. His recent comments offer a stark contrast with ones he made in 2018 when he compared Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler and described Iran as part of a “triangle of evil.” Behind the scenes, the two countries have also been busy. Earlier this month, the Financial Times broke news of direct talks, held in Baghdad, with a primary focus on ending the war in Yemen.

Chloe Zhao's challenge to Chinese Beauty standards (Quartz) Although Chloé Zhao’s Oscars win has largely been censored in China, her chill, no-makeup look at the awards ceremony has become a hit among many Chinese women, who say Zhao made them feel they can also ditch cosmetics and stop appealing to mainstream beauty standards in the country. China has a set of rigid standards for women’s appearance, prompting online slimming challenges that encourage young girls to pursue body shapes that allow them to wear children’s clothes, or have waists with a width similar to the shorter side of a piece of A4 paper (around 21 cm). As such, Zhao’s no-makeup look is a much-needed endorsement for women in China, where few public figures dare to break away from traditional beauty requirements.

Hong Kong’s latest star TV host? City leader Carrie Lam. (Washington Post) In a city known for producing action-packed martial arts movies, there’s a gripping new TV show on the block. The title promises to captivate viewers: “Get to Know the Election Committee Subsectors.” The star? Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, not as a guest but as the host. The show, which premiered Wednesday on public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, gives Lam a platform to promote electoral changes introduced by Beijing that further tilt the system against pro-democracy voices, add weight to industry-sector representatives and ensure only “patriots” loyal to the Communist Party can govern Hong Kong. People in mainland China have long been accustomed to state propaganda broadcasts. Hong Kong, however, traditionally had a freewheeling media environment. But almost a year after China imposed a security law that curtailed freedom of speech there, the public broadcaster has become a vital instrument of Beijing’s efforts to control the narrative. Wednesday night’s double-episode premiere featured furious agreement on the merit of Beijing’s electoral changes. The episodes scored only a few thousand views and mostly “thumbs-down” responses on YouTube. One user drew comparisons to George Orwell’s “1984.” If you missed the show, there’s plenty of opportunity to catch it again; episodes will air four times a day, every day.

Cambodians complain of lockdown hunger as outbreak takes toll on poor (Reuters) Residents in Cambodia’s capital gathered on Friday to demand food from the government, outraged at what they called inadequate aid distribution during a tough COVID-19 lockdown that bars people from leaving their homes. Authorities put Phnom Penh and a nearby town under a hard lockdown on April 19 to quell a surge in coronavirus infections that has seen Cambodia’s case total balloon from about 500 to 12,641 since late February, including all 91 of its deaths. Though private food deliveries are operating, markets and street food services are closed, making it difficult for poorer families to get supplies, with many without income because of the stay-home order. Amnesty International on Friday called Cambodia’s lockdown an emerging humanitarian and human rights crisis, with nearly 294,000 people in Phnom Penh at risk of going hungry.

Palestinian election delay (Reuters) It could have marked a political turning point. Palestinians were slated to go to the polls starting next month for the first time in 15 years—but on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced he will indefinitely postpone the elections. He blamed Israel, accusing authorities of stonewalling efforts to let Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem cast their ballots. But Israeli officials suggested Abbas was using Israel as a pretext to cancel a vote his faction might lose. Hamas, his party’s rival, has rejected the move, and some Palestinians took to the streets to protest.

The real threat to Chad’s military rulers: unemployed youth (Reuters) When Neldjibaye Madjissem graduated with a mathematics degree in 2015, he began searching for work as a school teacher. Six years on, he is still looking—and is angry. The 31-year-old blames Chad's government for lack of work, mismanagement of oil revenues and corruption. No wonder people are protesting on the streets in their thousands, he says. The battlefield death of President Idriss Deby last week, after 30 years of autocratic rule, sent the Central African country into a tailspin. But perhaps the greater threat for Chad’s rulers comes from the mass of unemployed young people tired of the Deby family and its international allies, particularly former colonial ruler France. At least six people died in violent protests this week. "The lack of jobs risks creating a great problem. The people are angry," said Madjissem, as he prepared a private lesson to a high school student in the living room of a tiny house in N'Djamena. His infrequent wage: $3 an hour.

Famine looms in southern Madagascar, U.N.’s food agency says (Reuters) Famine is looming in southern Madagascar, where children are “starving” after drought and sandstorms ruined harvests, the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. Amer Daoudi, senior director of WFP operations globally, speaking from Antananarivo, Madagascar, said he had visited villages where people had resorted to eating locusts and leaves. “I witnessed horrific images of starving children, malnourished, and not only the children—mothers, parents and the populations in villages we visited,” Daoudi told a United Nations briefing in Geneva. Malnutrition has almost doubled to 16% from 9% in March 2020 following five consecutive years of drought, exacerbated this year by sandstorms and late rains, he said.

#headlines #news

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ishahzaib22 · 6 years ago

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Facebook Wants a Faux Regulator for Internet Speech

Facebook Wants a Faux Regulator for Internet Speech. It Won’t Happen. In an opinion article published last weekend, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said he agreed with the growing consensus that Facebook — and other social media companies — should be subject to more regulation. The article, published in four countries and three languages, was fated to be misunderstood from the start.

His first suggestion was to create an independent body so users could appeal Facebook’s moderation decisions. Over the past few years, Facebook has caught fire from all sides for its content moderation. Some say hate speech should be censored more aggressively. At the same time, the company has been accused of censoring conservative viewpoints. And for years, it has been roundly criticized for its puritanical ban on female nipples.

But if Facebook had its way, the ultimate authority would no longer lie with Facebook — or Twitter or YouTube or other competitors. That job would fall to unspecified “regulators.”

“Regulation could set baselines for what’s prohibited and require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a bare minimum,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. For a company exhausted by a year of scandal, a regulatory scapegoat is just what the doctor ordered. If you don’t like what we do, why don’t you try it for a change?

American legal experts were incredulous. Daphne Keller of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society accused Facebook of proposing an unconstitutional system, knowing it was impossible. In an initial statement, Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said it was a violation of the First Amendment. The Electronic Frontier Foundation claimed it would violate the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Facebook’s head of public policy, Kevin Martin, explained that while Mr. Zuckerberg’s reference to “regulation” might mean actual government intervention in France, Germany and Ireland, it meant only private sector self-regulation in the United States.

This kind of faux regulation is nothing new. Among the examples cited were Finra, a nongovernmental financial industry “regulator”; the Motion Picture Association of America, which rates films; and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which rates video games. (After this clarification, the A.C.L.U.’s Mr. Wizner agreed that independent bodies like the M.P.A.A. are not unconstitutional).

But none of these examples deal with directly regulating speech. Social media content moderation is a different beast entirely. Slapping a label on a video game isn’t the same as banning distribution of the video game.

Facebook avoided bringing up the Hays Code, the closest corollary to what they propose. The M.P.A.A.’s current rating system is a pale shadow of Hollywood’s old Hays Code, the now-laughable list of rules that for years had onscreen husbands and wives sleeping in separate beds.

The Code was developed voluntarily by the studios in hopes of avoiding government censorship. It zealously policed depictions of romance, crime, law enforcement and the clergy. When the Supreme Court held that motion pictures were protected by the First Amendment in 1952, enforcement of the code diminished.

Facebook’s proposal is a bow to public opinion. Last year, a coalition of advocacy groups published the Santa Clara Principles — new baseline rules for how content moderation should work. The principles focus most heavily on the right to appeal decisions — particularly in conjunction with “new independent self-regulatory mechanisms” created in collaboration with industry.

All this sounds like what The Verge’s Casey Newton calls “a Facebook Supreme Court. ” It’s almost as though the Santa Clara Principles were developed by a room full of lawyers. Hammer, meet nail.

Due process would be much welcomed in a world where people believe simultaneously that Facebook takes down too little content or too much. But due process is costly, even after removing high-billing lawyers from the equation. Consider that the Supreme Court, with a budget of nearly $90 million, receives 8,000 petitions a year — most of which are rejected. Meanwhile, according to a class-action lawsuit filed by an ex-Facebook moderator, “moderators are asked to review more than 10 million potentially rule-breaking posts per week.”

No wonder content moderation on the big platforms doesn’t so much resemble an unpleasant visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles as it does a re-enactment of the horror film “The Purge.” Due process is a luxury good.

We’re not likely to see a Facebook Supreme Court — not an American one, in any event. The Hays Code died after the First Amendment was extended to movies; a Hays Code for the internet will probably be dead on arrival.

In a confused, fractured world, Facebook would be glad to stick to a single global standard. This is perhaps why Mr. Zuckerberg offers full-throated praise of the European Union’s privacy standard, the General Data Protection Regulation, in his op-ed. The fracture of the internet into different spheres of influence would be bad for his business, and to that end, the company would much rather impose European sensibilities on the American internet than deal with multiple standards.

So, while the American government has its hands tied behind its back by the Constitution, the French, the Germans and the Irish will set their own bar for online speech. In the future, American speech — at least online — may be governed by Europe.

#facebook

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 4 years ago

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Censorship of Words

Stephen Jay Morris

02/11/21

©Scientific Morality

It’s those nattering potentates of conservatism that are always the first to whine, “We are victims of Left wing censorship!” Truth be known, Right wing McCarthyism was the originator of so-called “Cancel Culture.” It is similar to Nazis complaining about International Jews persecuting the Aryan race. Any Right winger would love the so-called Left to be d-platformed. Conservatives are not absolutists when it comes to protecting First Amendment rights. Just so long as they aren’t affected.

Tumblr has been a stand-up company and has never censored me. Other social media platforms have. On February 21, I was suspended, for unknown reasons, by a platform who shall remain nameless. A dialog box popped up, stating that I had violated their community standards. It included a short list of violations: “Advocating Violence, Racist Language, Obscenity.” I had not committed any such acts. I did call Conservatives stupid. Whoa! That’s worse, I gather, than calling a Black person the N.-Word. Sarcasm aside, they deleted my post and suspended me for 24 hours.

This is nothing new for me. I have been censored occasionally, on the Internet, since 1999. I have used violent hyperbole, but not because I actually meant it. I did so to be emphatic and edgy. I’ve used four-letter words, as well as dirty sex terms. Tumblr is the only place where I can post honestly.

There is a more terrifying reason for censorship: to suppress my Leftist sentiments. The authorities are playing down the middle. I assume you are familiar with the phrase: “All sides do it.” They think that they're being magnanimous by censoring the extreme Right and the ultra Left. They see themselves as solomonic. But, no—it’s not about that. It’s not about some algorithm. Actually, it’s all about money. You think FaceBook or YouTube cares about social justice? Social media wants you to post photos of your pets, or what you ate last night, or videos about friendships and family. Now, when you do a speech about Capitalist exploitation, an ad for toilet paper abruptly pops up in mid-rant! On the other hand, there is some Conservative raving about the “Evils of Communism” on Tik Toc, a web site run by Communist China! What’s a pseudo intellectual to do?

Brilliant talk radio host, Randi Rhodes, used to be on AM radio, representing the Progressive point of view. She was no fire brand revolutionary; she could have had tea with your mother. Now, she has a TV show streamed over the Internet via Free Speech TV. Well, I couldn’t stand watching her show on that station because of their New Age, doggy poo-poo played during her breaks, so I caught it on YouTube—over the last two years. Well, yesterday, YouTube suspended her account because she had shown previously unseen footage of the January 6 Capitol attacks and riots, which C‑Span had aired. So what the FUCK, Donald Duck!? If they can suspend a nice Jewish girl like like Randi Rhodes, what are they going to do with folks like you and me?

If the Leftist community was smart, they would start their own platform. That way, no one could censor anybody. But, that would be a problem in itself for me, because I incorporate racist words and sexist language in my writing style to prove points I am making. I mock racists and other villains of the world by using their own language. As such, I would not fit in with an Authoritarian Left format. Using street language removes any elitist façade from my writing.

I was considering starting my own political Vlog. However, I don’t know if now is a good time for that. The political environment is poisonous piousness. You see, I am becoming alienated with the live streams by Zoomers who are gamers; they view debating as a contact sport.

A lot of Zoomers and Millennials have written off Baby Boomers as senile old farts. On the other hand, were I to present my case, they might see me slightly differently. I have held great respect for people from older generations. In 1974, I was in the back seat of a car going to Isla Vista for a Peace & Freedom Party conference. Seated next to me was a 90-year-old Wobbly—a member of The I.W.W. Man, was that an interesting encounter!

But, I digress. After some careful thought, I’ve decided to wait until everything cools down. I’ll continue to do my video show about music and culture. Until then? “Forget about it!”

Update 02/13/21: Well, the unnamed platform ultimately gave me a three-day suspension. They have millions of users and, for years, they ignored me. Upon further investigation, I learned that complaints were made against me. I think someone specifically informed on me. After the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, social media has been clamping down hard on hate speech. They even showed me posts I had made way back in April, when I called the MAGA crowd rude words.

So, I took a new vow: I will no longer post any opinions on social media platforms. I will continue to maintain my music group, “Adventures in Garage Land,” and will post my political views on Tumblr only.

So, as for the rat who snitched on me: I don’t really care. I will struggle upward until I am satisfied.

#censorship #facebook #twitter #capitol siege #poets of tumblr #stephenjaymorris #anarchism

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tom-mcd71 · 4 years ago

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Parler Releases Election Transparency Pledge

To protect integrity of the vote, Free Speech platform will host unfiltered content of the leading up to and after election day

Las Vegas, Nevada – To counter the de facto censorship planned by tech publishers like Facebook and Twitter, Parler has released a pledge to bring transparency and sunlight to the 2020 elections.

In a document written by COO and Strategic Investor Jeffrey Wernick, Parler announced that it will work with all parties and stakeholders to host unfiltered election content so that voters can hear all perspectives and decide for themselves what to think.

The full pledge is included here:

By popular account, Benjamin Franklin was asked the question as he strode from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “What did we get, Doctor?”

He famously answered, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

We have held on to our Republic for 233 years, and trust in the integrity of our elections has been key. Americans have been confident that the vote of The People was secure and that transitions of power would be lawful.

But now, after months of indefinite lockdowns imposed with questionable authority and the Nation’s purse strings stretched beyond a limit any reasonable person would deem prudent, there looms a dire threat: a coordinated information blackout.

Recent polling by the Pew Center shows that half of voters expect it to be difficult to vote during this pandemic year, an expectation that will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome. States across the Nation are scrambling to implement broad mail-in ballot programs, often governed by vague, unfamiliar rules that many Americans simply do not trust.

Whether their concerns are overblown is debatable, but research from MIT’s Election lab found that such programs increase the chance of fraud or error, particularly in jurisdictions where the system is new. We have seen major problems this year in places like New Jersey where a municipal election, held entirely by mail for the first time, was deemed to have been “irreversibly tainted,” and results were thrown out.

Matters won’t be helped when political power brokers execute their plans to delegitimize and challenge the results. Nor will they be helped when Facebook, Twitter and YouTube exercise their moderation powers as they see fit to impair the free flow of information.

By the time we finally do get official results—something Mark Zuckerberg is telling us we may not get for weeks—we could end up with a President-Elect the authority of whom roughly half of Americans won’t respect. That’s a recipe for instability, conflict, even violence.

We at Parler have no influence over election strategies nor can we predict the future. What we do know is that there will be a tremendous information deficit when Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter fire up their content-curation machines to halt the free flow of information.

Zuckerberg and his technoauthoritarian pals have made their plans clear. They will impose de facto censorship and an information blackout in which only “approved” information sources may be read, seen and heard. This plan is a recipe for disaster.

The slogan of The Washington Post is, “Democracy Dies in the Dark.” At Parler, we could not agree more. We will not let this backout stand!

Trust in election results requires transparency. The very last thing Americans need is to be coddled, babysat and spoon-fed propaganda. The People demand and deserve to hear from all sides, parties, and sources, so that they may exercise their own judgment. No one should be blocked, banned or censored, whether by government agents or Silicon Valley special interests. Biased editors and content curators should not be telling us what we may see, hear, read, write, say, or think.

Parler will be the home for unfiltered, uncensored, real-time election coverage. We invite all candidates, parties, election observers, journalists, and interested citizens to share news, information, and commentary on Parler. We will honor the right of all to speak freely to the community of users, who have grown accustomed to being able to read, watch, comment, parley—and decide for themselves what to think. Parler will be the hub for exit polling, poll watching, ballot counting, ballot recounting, legal challenges, breaking news and analysis from all perspectives

While this approach is just business as usual for Parler, we are proud to be doing our part to ensure that no candidate or special interest will be able cheat, interfere, incite unrest, or steal an election in the darkness. Sunshine is the antidote to election fraud and interference.

Americans deserve nothing less than full transparency. It is essential for the legitimacy of, trust in, and respect for election outcomes. We are here to provide it.

Join the movement at Parler.

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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The Decade's Biggest Technology Disappointments

https://sciencespies.com/news/the-decades-biggest-technology-disappointments/

The Decade's Biggest Technology Disappointments

Like most teen years, the past decade in technology started out someplace relatively innocent before growing moody, dark and disillusioned. In 2010, we were excited about new iPhones and finding old friends on Facebook, not fretting about our digital privacy or social media’s threat to democracy. Now we are wondering how to rein in the largest companies in the world and reckoning with wanting innovation to be both fast and responsible.

Over the past 10 years, new technology has changed how we communicate, date, work, get around and pass time. But for every hit, there have been high-profile disappointments and delays. That includes overpriced gadgets for making juice, face computers, promises of taking a vacation in space and companies claiming to be saving the world.

The failures served a purpose, acting as reality checks for the technology industry and the people who fund, regulate or consume its products. Tech companies spent the last decade first trying to grasp, then distance themselves from, their impact on society. Facebook’s famously decommissioned “move fast and break things” motto sounded plucky in 2010 and laughably misguided in 2019, when the company had, in fact, broken things.

It was a decade when billions of dollars were thrown at tech companies, and yet many of the promises those companies made never materialized, blew up in our faces or were indefinitely delayed. And while tech failures are nothing new, taken together they brought the innovation industrial complex closer to earth and made us all a bit more realistic – if less fun.

Like proper adults.

The benevolent, world-saving tech company

“Don’t be evil” read Google’s famous motto, which sat atop its code of conduct until 2018, when it was quietly demoted to the last line.

At the beginning of the decade, that is exactly how many of the largest tech companies and CEOs marketed themselves. Their products were not only going to make daily life easier or more enjoyable, but they also would make the entire world better – even if their business models depended on ads and your personal data.

“Facebook was not originally founded to be a company. We’ve always cared primarily about our social mission,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a 2012 letter, just before the company’s initial public offering. He outlined lofty visions going forward, including that Facebook would create a more “honest and transparent dialogue” about government through accountability.

Instead, the decade turned toward disinformation, and hate speech spread on social media. Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube were used to spread disinformation ahead of the 2016 U.S. election, while Google briefly worked on a search engine for China that would censor content. Companies profited off mountains of user data they collected but failed to protect, as major data breaches hit Equifax, Yahoo and others.

In response, workers are pushing back, growing into quiet armies attempting to redirect their companies toward social goals.

Face computers

Google co-founder Sergey Brin debuted Google Glass in 2012 by wearing a prototype of the smart glasses onstage. Its real PR outing came later that year when skydivers live-streamed their jump out of a blimp above San Francisco during a Google developer conference.

By showing information in front of the face instead of on a phone, Google said, the $1,500 Glass would allow people to interact more with the world around them. Instead, its legacy has been questions about our right to privacy from recording devices, the word “glasshole,” and at least one bar fight. The company stopped selling Glass to consumers in 2015 and shifted it to a workplace product, targeting everyone from factory workers to doctors.

Google was not alone. Microsoft made HoloLens, a technically ambitious piece of eyewear that looked like round steampunk goggles and used augmented reality. Facebook bought virtual-reality goggle maker Oculus for $2 billion and heavily invested in and promoted it as a gaming and entertainment device (and the future of social media). Magic Leap, another augmented reality headset promising immersive and mind-blowing entertainment, managed to raise $2.6 billion and only release one $2,295 developer product.

Eventually we may wear glasses that display useful information on top of the real world, outfitted with smart assistants that whisper in our ears. Google’s early attempt at a consumer face-wearable was not destined to be that device.

A more efficient way of eating

Juice. Colorful, thirst-quenching, packed with vitamins, on-demand juice. It seemed an unlikely thing for Silicon Valley to try to disrupt. But in the 2010s, entrepreneurs’ impatience with preparing and even consuming the calories necessary to survive led to a number of eating innovations.

One of the decade’s most memorable tech failures asked the question: What if you spent $699 for an elaborate machine that squeezed juice from proprietary bags of fruit and vegetable pulp for you? The answer, discovered by intrepid Bloomberg journalists in 2017, is that you could squeeze those packets with your hands instead of overpaying for a machine. That machine was Juicero, and it raised $120 million in funding before shutting down just five months later.

Other food innovations have fallen fall short of their revolutionary promises. Smart ovens became fire hazards; meal-kit delivery start-ups went under; robots tossed salads, mixed drinks and flipped burgers; and pod-based devices for random foods (cocktails, tortillas, cookies, yoghurt, jello shots) failed. And then there’s Soylent – a meal in drink form, designed to save time by cutting out “tasting good” and “chewing.” Soylent has managed to find a small but enthusiastic fan base, and even got into solids recently with a line of meal-replacement bars called Squared.

The decade’s real food change came from delivery apps that pay on-demand workers to bring meals made in actual kitchens to your door. Those companies are dealing with employee protests over low and confusing pay while trying to become profitable.

Non-Facebook social networks

Remember Path? Color? Yik Yak, Meerkat and Google Buzz? And iTunes Ping, Apple’s short-lived attempt at making its music hub social? Start-ups and the tech giants alike launched social products over the past decade, but few succeeded.

In 2010 there was Google Buzz, which was quickly replaced by Google+ in 2011. The service struggled to attract users and experienced privacy issues, such as a bug exposing more than 52 million people’s data. It was finally declared dead this year, though some of its best features live on in Google Photos.

Vine burned bright for too short a time before being closed in 2016 by Twitter, which had bought the company for a reported $30 million in 2012. (Speaking of Twitter, it hung on thanks in part to its popularity with politicians, celebrities and people who are mad online, though it is far smaller than Facebook. Snapchat and TikTok have also carved out niches.)

Facebook dominated at the start of the decade and continues to dominate at the end, in part by buying or blatantly copying any competitors along the way. It acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, integrating both more closely with the Facebook brand. Even with major scandals and fumbles, its global user base grew to more than 2 billion people.

A crowdfunding, DIY revolution

For a short time, it looked as though the next generation of gadgets would come from outside the usual Silicon Valley idea factories. They would be dreamed up by passionate hobbyists, prototyped on 3-D printers and funded by fans instead of venture capitalists (though still manufactured in Shenzhen, China). Despite some notable successes – Oculus, Peloton, Boosted Boards – it turns out getting an idea from your cocktail napkin to market is pretty tough.

Notable failures include the disappointing Coolest Cooler, which featured both Bluetooth and a blender and raised more than $13 million on Kickstarter in 2014. It failed to deliver products to a third of its backers; many that shipped didn’t work. Others never materialized, such as iBackPack, which was supposed to produce a WiFi hotspot. The people behind it raised more than $800,000 and were accused by the Federal Trade Commission of using those funds to buy bitcoin and pay off credit cards. Skarp Laser Razor, a razor with dubious hair-removal technology, managed to get more than $4 million in pledges from interested customers before Kickstarter suspended its campaign for violating policies on working prototypes.

(Kickstarter said the vast majority of its products make it to production and that it aims “to be quite clear about the fact that not all projects will go smoothly.”)

Consumer 3-D printers also failed to live up to the hype. We were supposed to have a printer in every home, spitting out replacement LEGOs and screws, art projects, and even food. The high cost of the devices and the skills needed to use them could not compete with overnight shipping.

Drones dropping deliveries

“Could it be, you know, four, five years? I think so. It will work, and it will happen, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun,” Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said.

The year was 2013, and Bezos was on “60 Minutes” to unveil the next big thing in package delivery: drones. He said that within that time frame, quadcopters would be able to drop packages from warehouses at customers’ doors within 30 minutes. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

In 2016, Amazon showed off its first commercial drone delivery in a rural area of the United Kingdom, a 13-minute delivery of an Amazon Fire TV streaming device and a bag of popcorn. Its latest drone iteration was on display earlier this year at MARS, its weird tech conference, again promising that drone deliveries were coming soon.

But as of the end of the decade, Amazon packages are still being delivered by humans. In fact, Amazon announced in 2018 that it was adding 20,000 delivery vans via third-party delivery partners to its ground fleet. Other companies, including Uber, UPS and Alphabet’s Wing, have also been testing drone deliveries, and it’s possible that we will have boxes from the sky onto porches in the next decade.

Vaping to fix smoking

It was supposed to be safer than smoking and a way to quit nicotine altogether. While vaping has indeed caught on, its biggest selling point has blown up in recent years. Eight deaths and more than 2,500 cases of lung-related illnesses have been linked to vaping in the United States.

Critics say fun-sounding flavors and colorful devices, most notably from the company Juul, have made vaping wildly popular with teenagers – one in four high schoolers vapes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now the FDA and lawmakers are investigating vaping companies. But if we draw on experience from the cigarette industry, vaping is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

Amazon’s big phone play

Apple and Google have direct access to billions of people with their smartphone operating systems and hardware – 2.5 billion devices run Google’s Android operating system, and 900 million iPhones are in use.

One company noticeably absent from our pockets is Amazon, but not for lack of trying. After several years of stealth development, Amazon announced its Fire Phone in 2014. The smartphone did not look like much, started at $199, ran on a customized version of Android and was available only on AT&T. Amazon reported $83 million of unused inventory in late 2014, and it discontinued the Fire Phone a year after its introduction.

Now that Amazon is competing against those two companies for voice-assistant dominance, its lack of a smartphone is even more glaring. It has put Alexa in anything with a microphone, from cameras to headphones and, soon, eye glasses. (It is on smartphones, but you have to open the Alexa app first.) Meanwhile Apple’s Siri and Google’s Assistant are already in pockets, built into the core of the devices and listening for their next cue.

Tourists in space

It is no secret that big-name billionaires love space. Despite their passion, the three boldest aspiring space barons have made and missed deadlines for sending people into space this decade.

Richard Branson said Virgin Galactic would fly tourists into space by 2020, but its last test mission was two test pilots and a crew member at the start of last year. Bezos said at an Air Force Association conference in late 2018 that Blue Origin would send a test flight into the upper atmosphere with people on board this year, but the most recent test flight, on Dec. 11, contained no humans. In 2017, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX had taken deposits to fly two passengers around the moon in 2018. That flight did not take place. He has the whole next decade to hit a different goal, set in 2011: sending someone to Mars by 2031.

There are plenty of interested customers. Virgin Galactic has sold tickets to more than 700 people wanting to take a trip to space at $250,000 a seat.

If there is one thing on this list we would not want to rush just to meet a deadline, it is loading civilians into private rockets and hurling them into space.

#News

#12-2019 Science News #2019 Science News #Earth Environment #earth science #Environment and Nature #Nature Science #News Science Spies #Our Nature #planetary science #Science #Science News #Science Spies #Science Spies News #Space Physics & Nature #Space Science #News

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magzoso-tech · 5 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/the-decades-biggest-technology-disappointments/

The Decade's Biggest Technology Disappointments

Like proper adults.

The benevolent, world-saving tech company

“Don’t be evil” read Google’s famous motto, which sat atop its code of conduct until 2018, when it was quietly demoted to the last line.

In response, workers are pushing back, growing into quiet armies attempting to redirect their companies toward social goals.

Face computers

A more efficient way of eating

Non-Facebook social networks

A crowdfunding, DIY revolution

(Kickstarter said the vast majority of its products make it to production and that it aims “to be quite clear about the fact that not all projects will go smoothly.”)

Drones dropping deliveries

“Could it be, you know, four, five years? I think so. It will work, and it will happen, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun,” Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said.

Vaping to fix smoking

Amazon’s big phone play

Tourists in space

It is no secret that big-name billionaires love space. Despite their passion, the three boldest aspiring space barons have made and missed deadlines for sending people into space this decade.

There are plenty of interested customers. Virgin Galactic has sold tickets to more than 700 people wanting to take a trip to space at $250,000 a seat.

If there is one thing on this list we would not want to rush just to meet a deadline, it is loading civilians into private rockets and hurling them into space.

#Miscellaneous

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scifigeneration · 7 years ago

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Country rules: the ‘splinternet’ may be the future of the web

by Terry Flew

Both The Economist and WIRED are worried about the “splinternet”. The UK research organisation NESTA thinks it could “break up” the world wide web as we know it.

What is this awkwardly named idea? It’s the concept that someone’s experience of the internet in Turkey, for example, is increasingly different from their experience of the internet in Australia.

Travellers to China, in particular, will be familiar with this phenomenon. Thanks to the government’s tight control, they have to use Baidu rather than Google as their search engine, and are unable to access Facebook or news sites like The Economist and the New York Times.

Read More: Is America’s digital leadership on the wane?

We have a growing splinternet because of regional content blocking and the need for companies to comply with diverse, often conflicting national policies, regulations and court decisions.

This tension is particularly apparent when it comes to the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter. These platform companies have users in almost every country, and governments are increasingly insisting that they comply with local laws and cultural norms when it comes to access and content.

The internet was never truly open

The idea of the internet as an independent, global and unregulated platform has always been something of a fiction. Even at the height of techno-futurist rhetoric about its potential to transcend national boundaries in the late 1990s, there were always exceptions.

The Chinese Communist Party understood from the start that the internet was simply a new form of media, and media control was central to national sovereignty and its authority.

But the splinternet refers to a broader tendency to use laws and regulatory powers within territorial jurisdictions to set limits on digital activities.

A threshold moment was Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013. The documents he shared suggested that the US National Security Agency, through its PRISM program, had been collecting information from global users of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo.

In countries such Brazil, whose leaders had had their communications intercepted, this accelerated moves towards developing national internet control.

Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet law, for instance, now requires global companies to comply with Brazilian laws around data protection.

Is this a bad thing?

Until now, much of the appeal of the internet has been that it’s driven by user content and preferences, and not by governments.

But people are paying more attention to hate speech, targeted online abuse, extremism, fake news and other toxic aspects of online culture. Women, people of colour and members of certain religions are disproportionately targeted online.

Academics such as Tarleton Gillespie and public figures such as Stephen Fry are part of a growing rejection of the typical response of platform providers: that they are “just technology companies” – intermediaries – and cannot involve themselves in regulating speech.

A UK House of Commons report into “hate crime and its violent consequences” noted that:

…there is a great deal of evidence that these platforms are being used to spread hate, abuse and extremism. That trend continues to grow at an alarming rate but it remains unchecked and, even where it is illegal, largely unpoliced.

If we say online hate speech “should be policed”, two obvious questions arise: who would do it and on what grounds?

At present, content on the major platforms is largely managed by the companies themselves. The Guardian’s Facebook Files revealed both the extent and limitations of such moderation.

We may see governments become increasingly willing to step in, further fragmenting the user experience.

Fair play for all

There are other concerns at play in the splinternet. One is the question of equity between technology companies and traditional media.

Brands like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix and Amazon are eclipsing traditional media giants. Yet film, television, newspapers and magazines are still subject to considerably greater levels of country-specific regulation and public scrutiny.

For example, Australian commercial television networks must comply with locally produced material and children’s content regulations. These mostly do not apply to YouTube or Netflix despite audiences and advertisers migrating to these providers.

Read More: Discontents: identity, politics and institutions in a time of populism

It is increasingly apparent to media policy makers that existing regulations aren’t meaningful unless they extend into the online space.

In Australia, the 2012 Convergence Review sought to address this. It recommended that media regulations should apply to “Content Service Enterprises” that met a particular size threshold, rather than basing the rules on the platform that carries the content.

Do we want a splinternet?

We may be heading towards a splinternet unless new global rules can be set. They must combine the benefits of openness with the desire to ensure that online platforms operate in the public interest.

Yet if platform providers are forced to navigate a complex network of national laws and regulations, we risk losing the seamless interconnectedness of online communication.

The burden of finding a solution rests not only on governments and regulators, but on the platforms themselves.

Their legitimacy in the eyes of users is tied up with what Bank of England chair Mark Carney has termed for markets is a “social licence to operate”.

Although Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and others operate globally, they need to be aware that the public expects them to be a force for social good locally.

Terry Flew is a Professor of Media and Communications at the Queensland University of Technology.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

#technology #technopolitics #internet

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tbitzas-blog · 5 years ago

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The Great Firewall of China

Imagine living in a world with no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat, no YouTube, not even dam Wikipedia. Well lucky for you, you don’t have to imagine this word, why, because you clearly live in the Western world. These social media platforms have ultimately transformed the way we communicate and connect with each other, but can you imagine living in a country where these sites are not only unavailable but are also BANNED. Yes, I know mind blown!

As it turns out, the Chinese governments have blocked these social networking sites that we use on an almost daily basis, as they deem the content to not be in the interest of the state. Don’t be alarmed, they aren’t totally confined to colouring books and crossword puzzles, they do have their own set of social media platforms that bare some resemblance to our famous sites. These include WeChat, Weibo, Baidu, QQ and Youku.

Youku is the YouTube of the westernized society, which serves as China’s main social networking site. Anyone is able to upload their own videos, however, this site is strictly monitored by the Chinese government and anything criticising the Communist Party is taken down. I mean isn’t freedom of speech one of the ten commandments?

As I am sure many of you are familiar with Game of Thrones, you must therefore understand the importance of a big wall for an old kingdom. It prevents weird things entering from the north. And just like the wall that spans Westeros’ north border, China also has a great wall, which has protected the country from invaders for the last 2,000 years. But another wall that many individuals are not so familiar is the Great Firewall of China. That's the biggest digital boundary in the whole world. It was built not only to protect Chinese traditional regime from universal customs and practices, but also to prevent China’s own citizens to access the global free internet, breaking their united front.

So here is the time we present to you two internets. One is the internet, and the other is the Chinanet.

But why does China have their only virtual internet and prohibit the use of apps commonly used by westernized societies. Well the answer is simple:

Censorship

This form of internet censorship is widely known as the ‘The Great Firewall of China’. It was implemented by the Chinese Government to serve two purposes.

Firstly, it allows the the government to at least partially control the flow of information to the country, and it fosters an economy that promotes homegrown Chinese companies such as the Chinese Uber (Didi), Chinese Facebook (WeChat), and the Chinese Google Search (Baidu).

Regardless, the Chinese government seems willing to endure the economic and scientific costs, as well as potential damage to its credibility, if it means more control over the internet. Censorship has practically forced Chinese online users to embrace their creativity gene and for the censors to be highly alert in blocking this exceedingly creative content. For example, online searches for this little cute ball of yellow fluff were blocked once in a while.

Why you may ask? Well because people think Winnie the Pooh looks like President Xi Jinping, so when people mention Winnie in conversations through words or picture, they use it as a proxy for talking about this guy.

Imaged sourced from (BBC).

I don’t know if its just me, but I can’t really see the resemblance. Should’ve gone to Specsavers I guess.

There are several ways however that Chinese citizens can reap the benefits of the modernised internet world despite ‘The Great Firewall’, with a VPN being the most common used.

A VPN, Virtual Private Network, is a connection method used to add security and privacy to private and public networks. It enables users to hide their IP address and actual location, displaying instead one of their IP addresses and virtual location from anywhere in the world where their server exists.

However, Chinese citizens may not get this privilege anymore, in the latest crackdown by the Chinese Government which will see the abolishment of VPN networks to suppress dissent and maintain the communications party’s grip on power. Welcome back Didi, WeChat and Baidu.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful I live in country where I’m able to freely post about all the Winnie the Pooh related memes and content I want. I mean I use VPN here so I can watch Netflix from practically any country in the world, I couldn’t imagine if I had to use a VPN just so I could send my snapchat streaks for the day. Oops, don’t report me cause the Australian Government is also cracking down on this at the moment yikes. Living in China would be like featuring in an episode of Big Brother and playing Truman in The Truman Show. Creepy and a total violation of personal privacy. No thankyou!

#mda20009 #digitalcommunities #post8 #internetcensorship #china #thegreatfirewall #vpn #thetrumanshow

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lewisdigitalcitizenship-blog · 6 years ago

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Article 13 - THE END OF THE MEME?

You are probably wondering 1 of 3 things right now. Firstly, what do you mean this is the end of memes? Secondly, what is article 13? And thirdly, what is a meme? Just in case you are part of the small minority that doesn't know what a meme is,

Originally posted by desingyouruniverse

The Oxford Dictionary has 2 definitions. The one I will be talking about is: “An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations”. If you want some examples of memes check out this article post by Complex down below:

Link to memes: https://www.complex.com/life/best-memes-2018

Now over to the main talking point. Article 13 is a proposal put forward in 2016 by the European Commission to change and implement new copyright laws. The reasoning behind this proposal was to update copyright laws to a more appropriate manor to combat the ever-changing environment. This blog post will talk about what is Article 13, its sister Article 11, the organisations and people affected. Also, the way in which it would change the way we use the internet with the EU.

What are the effects on organisations and creative people?

The overall effects caused by the change to Article 13 and 11 have been described as “taking a step back” as quoted in an article by The Guardian. This article would influence most of the creative economy such as music artists, video creators, reviewers and news sites. One of the proposals is referred to as a “Link Tax” by most news reports and articles. This change would mean that the creator of the content shared on their page would get a percentage of the advertisement revenue. This means the company’s revenue would be eaten into by this new proposal. The other issues that would arise would be that the companies that host the information would be open to lawsuits for copyright infringement. This would mean that sites such as YouTube and Twitch, who’s sites primarily rely on user generated content to generate revenue from adds, would have to drastically change the way they operate.

This is one of the big reasons why there has been such an uproar, since larger companies would have to set up processes to scan all user uploaded content to check for any infringements. This would be costly to this organisation and would drive down traffic to their sites due to the lack of content that would be compliant with the new regulations if they were to be put in place.

For these platforms to protect themselves people who upload content to the site would have to have agreements with the people who have produced the product to prevent them from being sued. This would be hard to do for large platforms like YouTube and Facebook as they have millions of videos and images posted by users that it would almost be impossible to have an agreement with every content owner.

This has started up large campaigns to prevent these legislation changes such as the one by YouTube called #Saveyourinternet. This campaign highlights the issues of this article and tries to make creators aware of its effects and impacts. They mention a lot of issues that would arise if this act in its current form was passed. In a video titled, “Article 13 – There’s a better way”, Matt from YouTube quotes, “YouTube would be forced to block millions of existing and new videos in the EU”. They continue to mention that the types of videos people could upload would be ‘limited’. Down below are some of the affected videos they name:

If you would like to watch the full video it is down at the bottom of the blog post.

This is part of Youtube’s campaign to stop Article 13 being put in place. This shows the effects it would have on YouTube as they would be forced to block videos. Could you imagine if this happened to Youtube?

If you want to read more on the issue and to see YouTube’s campaigns here is a link to their site on the issue. Here you will also find videos from creators on the site to see where they stand on the matter.

Link to their campaign: https://www.youtube.com/saveyourinternet/

Above is a demographic from EDiMA on all the sectors and business’s that would be harmed by the proposal of Article 13. You can see that there is a vast amount of companies on here that would affected and ultimately change the way these sites will operate due to the user created content being limited. There

BBC News quoted that “many believe would be an excessive restriction on free speech”. The reasoning this is said is due to the fact that people would be stopped from making creative and opinionated videos such as movie reviews and parodies. The other impact Article 11 will have is that it is forcing news organisations such as the New York Times and The Guardian to take a percentage out of their ad revenue and give it to the owner of the content.

To note these organisations aren’t dismissing change to the copyright law. Most people and organisations respect and want to achieve this change. Just with its current form, this would have a huge effect on how people would express themselves.

Why does the European parliament want change?

The European union wants to “update EU copyright law for the age of Facebook and Google” as quoted by the Guardian. People who support the articles think it’s important to help support and give credit where is due to creatives online. With this overhaul of Article 13 and a similar overhaul to the similar sibling Article 11, the commission aims to make the creators of the work get paid for the work they have put in.

One of the proposals put in place is something referred to as a “link tax”. The idea of this is to take a cut of the revenue generated by the website, video, music or video and give it to the creator of the content through licensing the content for people to use. This includes sites putting snippets or links of their work to drive their own ad revenue up, having to give a proportion of this to the creator.

One example of this would be that any of the above images that aren’t owned by Lad Bible would generate revenue for the owner of the property. This would mean that sites that use this would have to take more precaution and spend more time to create their own content to use on their sites.

How close is this to happening? Or will it ever happen?

Currently both Article 13 and 11 are still being hotly debated with a possible final vote to take place in March of this year. Compromise have been offered to try and push the bill through with MEP Axel Voss offering to exempt small to medium sized businesses. However, this proposes a new challenge as there would be 2 sets of copyright law. As said in a report by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) this would essential create a “two-tier Internet”. This would cause issues with companies as they may want to stay in medium to small business category so they wouldn’t have to split some of there revenue with the creator if they use their property online.

One of the things that would have to be considered in this is the effect on new online start-ups within the EU if there wasn’t a tired system is that small online businesses within the EU would be at a big disadvantage compared to online business based outside the EU as they will struggle to stand out and differentiate themselves from competitors.

With the changes in copyright, I believe that everyone wants there to be change and respects the end goal of people getting revenue for when a site or person uses their work online. I just find that in its current state, the change would change the shape of how we use the internet for content in the EU. I feel that more time needs to be taken on changing the current laws for people properly online due to the world being more dependent on a digital life style.

Regarding the “link tax”, I feel that this a great concept as it gives credit to the creator for their work. I just think in practice this would be a very complicated system to put in place due to the sheer amount of content online.

Hopefully this opened you up and showed you a very present issue that could have large effects on how we go about our day to day life in a digital world. I also hope that there will never be a time where creativity is hindered and for there to be an end on Memes.

references The guardian(June 2018) EU votes for copyright law that would make internet a 'tool for control available at : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/20/eu-votes-for-copyright-law-that-would-make-internet-a-tool-for-control (accessed :22/1/2019)

The Guardian(September 2018) “ In punishing tech giants, the EU has made the internet worse for everyone”

Does it scare you too? If so, click here to #SaveYourInternet → https://t.co/UzaIKzKpj1 pic.twitter.com/obaNTfKlQD

Available at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/13/tech-giants-eu-internet-searches-copyright-law

(accessed :22/1/2019)

The guardian(Sep018) Battle over EU copyright law heads for showdown https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/09/battle-over-eu-copyright-law-heads-for-showdownl (accessed :22/1/2019)

Oxford Dictionary, meme, available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/meme (accessed :22/1/2019)

Complex (2018) “The best memes of 2018″ Available at : https://www.complex.com/life/best-memes-2018/ (accessed :22/1/2019)

The law dictionary(2018) “What Happens If You Break Copyright Laws?” Available at: https://thelawdictionary.org/article/what-happens-if-you-break-copyright-laws/ (accessed :22/1/2019)

alphr (2017)”Article 13 approved: What are the EU copyright law amendments?” Available at:https://www.alphr.com/politics/1009470/article-13-EU-what-is-it-copyright

youtube

#de

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years ago

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YouTube Removed a Sex Tech Conference for No Reason

The first-ever live streamed Women of Sex Tech conference, held on Saturday over Crowdcast, almost didn't happen because YouTube's automated moderation controls banned the group from the platform.

Women of Sex Tech, a group of entrepreneurs in sex and technology industries, has been organizing events and meetups for nearly five years. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year's conference moved to live-streaming online.

Women of Sex Tech president Alison Falk and vice president SX Noir tested the live stream on YouTube on Friday evening. After four minutes of streaming with a speaker in the UK, the stream was cut off for violating community guidelines.

"I was so confused, I thought it had to be a glitch considering there was no mention of sex or adult content at that time," Falk told Motherboard. She said that the YouTube account only had their logo on it, and was made weeks in advance. When she tried testing again a few hours later with Noir, YouTube said the channel was in violation three more times.

In a statement to the Daily Dot, a YouTube spokesperson blamed the incident on its coronavirus response, which involved sending human moderators home and instead relying more heavily on automated algorithms. “We know that this may result in some videos being removed that do not violate our policies, but this allows us to continue to act quickly and protect our ecosystem," the spokesperson said. "If creators think that their content was removed in error, they can appeal decisions and our teams will take a look.”

Falk and Noir told Motherboard that appealing the decision, so close to their event the following morning, seemed pointless.

"At that point, we began scrambling to figure out what we could do and ended up having to fork over a couple hundred dollars for conferencing software to make sure the show would still go on!" Falk said; Crowdcast costs $195 per month for a business plan that could support the attendees and time limit they needed.

YouTube’s nudity and sexual content policies bans a whole list of explicit content "meant to be sexually gratifying," but there was none of that in the entire five-hour conference, which Motherboard attended. Speakers including founder of MakeLoveNotPorn Cindy Gallop, reproductive health specialist Serena Chen, and sextech business founder Lora Haddock DiCarlo spoke on how the coronavirus pandemic has affected their work, and gave insights into how others in the sexual wellness and education industry can cope with the current crisis.

Adult industry professionals including Danielle Blunt, who spoke about the EARNIT act, and writer Jessie Sage discussed the ways sex work is impacted by the pandemic, but no one described their profession in explicit detail. All of that doesn't matter, however, because the algorithm decided they were breaking the YouTube terms of use before they even held the event.

"Morality and technology very much have intersections."

"Considering this isn't a one-time occurrence and there are frequent stories of folks being shadowbanned, demonetized, having their accounts disabled, and so on within our communities, I can't help but wonder what variables within the automation their smart detection has been told to look for that would trigger a violation of inappropriate content," Falk said.

This is yet another example of sex education and sexual speech being routinely silenced by tech companies like YouTube, Facebook and Apple for years. It's an incident that's indicative of a larger pattern of sexual censorship online.

"I think this indicates that there will always be a moral judgment on these platforms… When cis, heterosexual white men create these digital worlds, you see these moral judgments leading to more discrimination for people who are brown, black and queer," Noir said—and legislation like FOSTA-SESTA, which censors sexual speech online under the guise of preventing trafficking, and the EARN IT Act, which is still in the Senate but would give government actors the power to force sites to break users' encryption, further hinder their acceptance on mainstream platforms.

"Morality and technology very much have intersections," Noir said. "And most of the time, as mentioned, it's the queer and brown folks that are left out of this acceptance."

YouTube Removed a Sex Tech Conference for No Reason syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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entergamingxp · 5 years ago

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Modern Warfare battle royale leaks • Eurogamer.net

Activision is fighting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battle royale leaks with subpoenas and online takedowns.

Modern Warfare’s upcoming battle royale, reportedly dubbed Warzone, is one of the worst-kept secrets in all of video games. While it remains unannounced, players have found themselves accidentally transported into its tutorial, and there is detailed information relating to its map and mechanics online.

In fact, if you boot up Modern Warfare today you’ll see a “classified” portion of its main menu. Clearly, this will turn into battle royale once Warzone launches. And Activision even released what very much looks like a teaser for the battle royale, with one soldier saying “the gas is closing in” before fan-favourite character Ghost drops in to say “they’re targeting their own”. The camera then pulls back to show soldiers dropping out of a plane into a warzone with, yes, a green gas closing in.

youtube

But that hasn’t stopped Activision from filing multiple takedowns of social media and website posts on copyright grounds. And in a rare development, it has demanded Reddit hand over the personal details of a user who posted what looks like the cover art for Warzone.

As revealed by TorrentFreak, Activision obtained a subpoena from a US court ordering Reddit to dish the dirt on a redditor called Assyrian2410, who posted a thread on the Modern Warfare subreddit titled: “I found this image online. Not sure what it is. Possibly Battle Royale.”

The thread linked to an image that showed characters from Call of Duty standing on a downed chopper underneath the text: Call of Duty Warzone. Assyrian2410 has since deleted their Reddit account, and the image has been scrubbed.

It’s clear Activision is keen to find out the original source of this leak, but its efforts haven’t stopped with Assyrian2410. It has forced offline a tweet from a Call of Duty subreddit moderator who posted the image, and the Twitter account of Call of Duty leaker TheGamingRevolution, who claimed the image was “legit”, was suspended. TheGamingRevolution has also removed a video published to YouTube showing footage of the Warzone tutorial in action.

CALL OF DUTY WARZONE THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE CALL OF DUTY FRANCHISE pic.twitter.com/tXW912vhqM

— CARSON J KELLY (@CARSONJKELLY) February 12, 2020

Elsewhere, other Reddit posts have been caught in the crossfire. The founder of a subreddit dedicated to Modern Warfare’s battle royale, r/modernwarzone, told Eurogamer they received a takedown from Activision after they posted the leaked image of Warzone to their Twitter account.

“In the email they sent me concerning the takedown, they linked every other tweet that contained the same image that was removed, and there was quite a long list,” DougDagnabbit said.

“Every other takedown that’s come since has been more of the same, with the community’s original content being affected adversely due to them copyright striking anything that they see fit. Even information that’s easily available in-game without using exploits or cheats of any kind.”

Various links have now been deleted in a megathread posted on r/modernwarzone that rounds up all the information on Warzone discovered so far. And with Call of Duty fans hungry for more on the inevitable battle royale, Activision has come under fire for its aggressive takedown strategy even as it teases the release of the mode within Modern Warfare itself.

“They really handled this in the worst way possible,” DougDagnabbit said. “If they would’ve shown restraint and not have had such a knee jerk reaction to the original leaked image none of the current leaks would’ve happened. The subreddit wouldn’t have been created in the first place. I also think that adding the menu blade of ‘classified’ was a terrible idea on their part to build hype. I’m sure they didn’t intend on any of this to happen, but the public opinion of them has definitely gone down since everything started, and everyone knows the current public opinion on Activision isn’t exactly great.”

Activision declined to comment when contacted by Eurogamer, but its course of action comes as no surprise given the nature of the leak. What we have here could be considered the artwork for the next big Call of Duty release, given Warzone will reportedly be available to download for free seperate from Modern Warfare. The company no doubt feels within its rights to protect its intellectual property in this case, as opposed to responding to accidental leaks of its own making, such as via data-mining.

But, according to DougDagnabbit, Activision has targeted more than this leaked art.

“I would say it is within their rights, but some of the things they’ve taken down have been ridiculous,” DougDagnabbit said.

“One of our most active users, u/SlammedOptima made the original superimposed image of the Blackout map compared to the Warzone map. The Warzone map info had been posted months beforehand and was public knowledge, and the Blackout map information was public knowledge as well. Our user spent time making approximate calculation of size based off of things available in-game to everyone without any sort of exploitation and it was still taken down within 24 hours after several major news sites posted about it without crediting the original author or seeking his permission to use.”

Meanwhile, Reddit has until 29th February 2020 to hand over the personal details of Assyrian2410, although it’s unclear whether the subpoena will amount to much. As Gizmodo points out, when Reddit faced a similar case in 2019, the courts decided anyone from anywhere can rely on the right to anonymous free speech under the First Amendment because Reddit is an American platform.

Online, the wait for an official Warzone announcement has become a meme within Call of Duty subreddits, although some moderators remain on edge.

Y’all didn’t hear? They are starting to protest in the streets! There is outrage across the globe! from r/ModernWarzone

“We may have gained Activision’s attention, but we did not intend to break any terms of service or copyright law and we are strictly vetting the content that is posted to ensure that it is legal and contains no material that isn’t the poster’s original content,” DougDagnabbit said.

“If Activision decided to come after me, not only would it be terrible PR for them, but there’s tens of thousands of others out there that they would need to go after as well. We are all just huge fans of the new Modern Warfare, and are hyped to see battle royale release.”

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/modern-warfare-battle-royale-leaks-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=modern-warfare-battle-royale-leaks-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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iol247 · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki tells Lesley Stahl what the video platform is doing about hate speech in an interview Sunday on the CBS newsmagazine program ‘60 Minutes.’ Wojcicki told '60 Minutes’ that Google employs 10,000 people to focus on “controversial content.” She described their schedule, which includes time for therapy. Stahl also said there are reports that the “monitors” are “beginning to buy the conspiracy theories.” “What we really had to do was tighten our enforcement of that to make sure we were catching everything and we use a combination of people and machines,” Wojcicki explained. “So Google as a whole has about 10,000 people that are focused on controversial content.”

Lesley Stahl: I’m told that it is very stressful to be looking at these questionable videos all the time. And that there’s actually counselors to make sure that there aren’t mental problems with the people who are doing this work. Is that true? Susan Wojcicki: It’s a very important area for us. We try to do everything we can to make sure that this is a good work environment. Our reviewers work five hours of the eight hours reviewing videos. They have the opportunity to take a break whenever they want. Lesley Stahl: I also heard that these monitors, reviewers, sometimes, they’re beginning to buy the conspiracy theories. Susan Wojcicki: I’ve definitely heard about that. And we work really hard with all of our reviewers to make sure that, you know, we’re providing the right services for them.

Wojcicki on Section 230, stopping 70% of controversial content:

Lesley Stahl: Once you watch one of these, YouTube’s algorithms might recommend you watch similar content. But no matter how harmful or untruthful, YouTube can’t be held liable for any content, due to a legal protection called Section 230. The law under 230 does not hold you responsible for user-generated content. But in that you recommend things, sometimes 1,000 times, sometimes 5,000 times, shouldn’t you be held responsible for that material, because you recommend it? Susan Wojcicki: Well, our systems wouldn’t work without recommending. And so if– Lesley Stahl: I’m not saying don’t recommend. I’m just saying be responsible for when you recommend so many times. Susan Wojcicki: If we were held liable for every single piece of content that we recommended, we would have to review it. That would mean there’d be a much smaller set of information that people would be finding. Much, much smaller. Lesley Stahl: She told us that earlier this year, YouTube started re-programming its algorithms in the U.S. to recommend questionable videos much less and point users who search for that kind of material to authoritative sources, like news clips. With these changes Wojcicki says they have cut down the amount of time Americans watch controversial content by 70%.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/12/02/youtube_ceo_wojcicki_weve_cut_amount_of_time_americans_watch_controversial_content_by_70.html

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