#slapp

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Company that makes millions spying on students will get to sue a whistleblower

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia handed down a jaw-droppingly stupid and terrible decision, rejecting the whistleblower Ian Linkletter’s claim that he was engaged in legitimate criticism when he linked to freely available materials from the ed-tech surveillance company Proctorio:

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/23/01/2023BCCA0160.htm

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/20/links-arent-performances/#free-ian-linkletter

It’s been a minute since Linkletter’s case arose, so I’ll give you a little recap here. Proctorio is a massive, wildly profitable ed-tech company that sells a surveillance tool to monitor students while they take high-stakes tests from home. The tool monitors the student’s computer and the student’s face, especially their eye-movements. It also allows instructors and other personnel to watch the students and even take control of their computer. This is called “remote invigilation.”

This is ghastly in just about every way. For starters, Proctorio’s facial monitoring software embeds the usual racist problems with machine-learning stuff, and struggles to recognize Black and brown faces. Black children sitting exams under Proctorio’s gimlet eye have reported that the only way to satisfy Proctorio’s digital phrenology system is to work with multiple high-powered lights shining directly in their faces.

A Proctorio session typically begins with a student being forced to pan a webcam around their test-taking room. During lockdown, this meant that students who shared a room — for example, with a parent who worked night-shifts — would have to invade their family’s privacy, and might be disqualified because they couldn’t afford a place large enough to have private room in which to take their tests.

Proctorio’s tools also punish students for engaging in normal test-taking activity. Do you stare off into space when you’re trying through a problem? Bzzzt. Do you read questions aloud to yourself under your breath when you’re trying to understand their meanings? Bzzzt. Do you have IBS and need to go to the toilet? Bzzzt. The canon of remote invigilation horror stories is filled with accounts of students being forced to defecate themselves, or vomit down their shirts without turning their heads (because looking away is an automatically flagged offense).

The tragedy is that all of this is in service to the pedagogically bankrupt practice of high-stakes testing. Few pedagogists believe that the kind of exam that Proctorio seeks to recreate in students’ homes has real assessment merit. As the old saying goes, “Tests measure your ability to take tests.” But Proctorio doesn’t even measure your ability to take a test — it measures your ability to take a test with three bright lights shining directly on your face. Or while you are covered in your own feces and vomit. While you stare rigidly at a screen. While your tired mother who just worked 16 hours in a covid ward stands outside the door to your apartment.

The lockdown could have been an opportunity to improve educational assessment. There is a rich panoply of techniques that educators can adopt that deliver a far better picture of students’ learning, and work well for remote as well as in-person education. Instead, companies like Proctorio made vast fortunes, most of it from publicly funded institutions, by encouraging a worse-than-useless, discriminatory practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/24/proctor-ology/#miseducation

Proctorio clearly knows that its racket is brittle. Like any disaster profiteer, Proctorio will struggle to survive after the crisis passes and we awaken from our collective nightmare and ask ourselves why we were stampeded into using its terrible products. The company went to war against its critics.

In 2020, Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen doxed a child who complained about his company’s software in a Reddit forum:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#moral-exemplar

In 2021, the reviews for Proctorio’s Chrome plugin all mysteriously vanished. Needless to say, these reviews — from students forced to use Proctorio’s spyware — were brutal:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/04/hypervigilance/#radical-transparency

Proctorio claims that it protects “educational integrity,” but its actions suggest a company far more concerned about the integrity of its own profits:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

One of the critics that Proctorio attacked is Ian Linkletter. In 2020, Linkletter was a Learning Technology Specialist at UBC’s Faculty of Education. His job was to assess and support ed-tech tools, including Proctorio. In the course of that work, Linkletter reviewed Proctorio’s training material for educators, which are a bonanza of mask-off materials that are palpably contemptuous of students, who are presumed to be cheaters.

At the time, a debate over remote invigilation tools was raging through Canadian education circles, with students, teachers and parents fiercely arguing the merits and downsides of making surveillance the linchpin of assessment. Linkletter waded into this debate, tweeting a series of sharp criticisms of Proctorio. In these tweets, Linkletter linked to Proctorio’s unlisted, but publicly available, Youtube videos.

A note of explanation: Youtube videos can be flagged as “unlisted,” which means they don’t show up in searches. They can also be flagged as “private,” which means you have to be on a list of authorized users to see them. Proctorio made its training videos unlisted, but they weren’t private — they were visible to anyone who had a link to them.

Proctorio sued Linkletter for this. They argued that he had breached a duty of confidentiality, and that linking to these videos was a copyright violation:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/17/proctorio-v-linkletter/#proctorio

This is a classic SLAPP — a “strategic litigation against public participation.” That’s when a deep-pocketed, thin-skinned bully, like Proctorio, uses the threat of a long court battle to force their critics into silence. They know they can’t win their case, but that’s not the victory they’re seeking. They don’t want to win the case, they want to win the argument, by silencing a critic who would otherwise be bankrupted by legal fees.

Getting SLAPPed is no fun. I’ve been there. Just this year, a billionaire financier tried to force me into silence by threatening me with a lawsuit. Thankfully, Ken “Popehat” White was on the case, and he reminded this billionaire’s counsel that California has a strong anti-SLAPP law, and if Ken had to defend me in court, he could get a fortune in fees from the bully after he prevailed:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1531684572479377409

British Columbia also has an anti-SLAPP law, but unlike California’s anti-SLAPP, the law is relatively new and untested. Still, Proctorio’s suit against Linkletter was such an obvious SLAPP that for many of us, it seemed likely that Linkletter would be able to defend himself from this American bully and its attempt to use Canada’s courts to silence a Canadian educator.

For Linkletter to use BC’s anti-SLAPP law, he would have to prove that he was weighing in on a matter of public interest, and that Proctorio’s copyright and confidentiality claims were nonsense, unlikely to prevail on their merits. If he could do that, he’d be able to get the case thrown out, without having to go through a lengthy, brutally expensive trial.

Incredibly, though, the lower court found against Linkletter. Naturally, Linkletter appealed. His “factotum” is a crystal clear document that sets out the serious errors of law and fact the lower court made:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aB1ztWDFr3MU6BsAMt6rWXOiXJ8sT3MY/view

But yesterday, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court, repeating all of these gross errors and finding for Proctorio:

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/23/01/2023BCCA0160.htm

This judgment is grotesque. It makes a mockery of BC’s anti-SLAPP statute, to say nothing of Canadian copyright and confidentiality law. For starters, it finds that publishing a link can be a “performance” of a copyrighted work, which meant that when Linkletter linked to the world-viewable Youtube files that Proctorio had posted, he infringed on copyright.

This is a perverse, even surreal take on copyright. The court rejects Linkletter’s argument that even Youtube’s terms of service warned Proctorio that publishing world-viewable material on its site constituted permission for people to link to and watch that material.

But what about “fair dealing” (similar to fair use)? Linkletter argued that linking to a video that shows that Proctorio’s assurances to parents and students about its products’ benign nature were contradicted by the way it talked to educators was fair dealing. Fair dealing is a broad suite of limitations and exceptions to copyright for the purposes of commentary, criticism, study, satire, etc.

So even if linking is a copyright infringement (ugh, seriously?!), surely it’s fair dealing in this case. Proctorio was selling millions of dollars in software to public institutions, inflicting it on kids whose parents weren’t getting the whole story. Linkletter used Proctorio’s own words to rebut its assurances. What could be more fair dealing than that?

Not so fast, the appeals panel says: they say that Linkletter could have made his case just as well without linking to Proctorio’s materials. This is…bad. I mean, it’s also wrong, but it’s very bad, too. It’s wrong because an argument about what a company intends necessarily has to draw upon the company’s own statements. It’s absurd to say that Linkletter’s point would have been made equally well if he said “I disbelieve Proctorio’s public assurances because I’ve seen seekrit documents” as it was when he was able to link to those documents so that people could see them for themselves.

But it’s bad because it rips the heart out of the fair dealing exception for criticism. Publishing a link to a copyrighted work is the most minimal way to quote from it in a debate — Linkletter literally didn’t reproduce a single word, not a single letter, from Proctorio’s copyrighted works. If the court says, “Sure, you can quote from a work to criticize it, but only so much as you need to make your argument,” and then says, “But also, simply referencing a work without quoting it at all is taking too much,” then what reasonable person would ever try to rely on a fair dealing exemption for criticism?

Then there’s the confidentiality claim: in his submissions to the lower court and the appeals court, Linkletter pointed out that the “confidential” materials he’d linked to were available in many places online, and could be easily located with a Google search. Proctorio had uploaded these “confidential” materials to many sites — without flagging them as “unlisted” or “private.”

What’s more, the videos that Linkletter linked to were in found a “Help Center” that didn’t even have a terms-of-service condition that required confidentiality. How on Earth can materials that are publicly available all over the web be “confidential?”

Here, the court takes yet another bizarre turn in logic. They find that because a member of the public would have to “gather” the videos from “many sources,” that the collection of links was confidential, even if none of the links in the collection were confidential. Again, this is both wrong and bad.

Every investigator, every journalist, every critic, starts by looking in different places for information that can be combined to paint a coherent picture of what’s going on. This is the heart of “open source intelligence,” combing different sources for data points that shed light on one another.

The idea that “gathering” public information can breach confidentiality strikes directly at all investigative activity. Every day, every newspaper and news broadcast in Canada engages in this conduct. The appeals court has put them all in jeopardy with this terrible finding.

Finally, there’s the question of Proctorio’s security. Proctorio argued that by publishing links to its educator materials, Linkletter weakened the security of its products. That is, they claim that if students know how the invigilation tool works, it stops working. This is the very definition of “security through obscurity,” and it’s a practice that every serious infosec professional rejects. If Proctorio is telling the truth when it says that describing how its products work makes them stop working, then they make bad products that no one should pay money for.

The court absolutely flubs this one, too, accepting the claim of security through obscurity at face value. That’s a finding that flies in the face of all security research.

So what happens now? Well, Linkletter has lost his SLAPP claim, so nominally the case can proceed. Linkletter could appeal his case to Canada’s Supreme Court (about 7% of Supreme Court appeals of BC appeals court judgments get heard). Or Proctorio could drop the case. Or it could go to a full trial, where these outlandish ideas about copyright, confidentiality and information security would get a thorough — and blisteringly expensive — examination.

In Linkletter’s statement, he remains defiant and unwilling to give in to bullying, but says he’ll have to “carefully consider” his next step. That’s fair enough: there’s a lot on the line here:

https://linkletter.opened.ca/stand-against-proctorios-slapp-update-30/

Linkletter answers his supporters’ questions about how they can help with some excellent advice: “What I ask is for you to do what you can to protect students. Academic surveillance technology companies would like nothing more but for us all to shut up. Don’t let them silence you. Don’t let anyone or anything take away your human right to freedom of expression.”

Today (Apr 21), I’m speaking in Chicago at the Stigler Center’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. This weekend (Apr 22/23), I’m at the LA Times Festival of Books.

[Image ID: A girl working on a laptop. Her mouth has been taped shut. Glaring out of the laptop screen is the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Behind them is a tattered, filthy, burned Canadian flag.]

Image: Ingo Bernhardt https://www.flickr.com/photos/spree2010/4930763550/

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

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Eleanor Vladinsky (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canadian_flag_against_grey_sky.jpg

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[queersatanic]

We fuckin' won, y'all

It hasn't fully sunk in yet, but we did just get some truly joyful news.

The Satanic Temple lost AGAIN, and ours is a full victory here

The King County Superior Court just granted our motion for summary judgment in full, dismissing all claims with prejudice and ruling on our declaratory judgment counterclaim we have the right to use "the Memes Page".

facebook.com/queersatanic

It has been 1635 DAYS since The Satanic Temple filed their case against us in federal district court. We got it dismissed there once in February 2021; we got it dismissed again in January 2023 after TST re-filed.

The Satanic Temple appealed the second loss to the Ninth Circuit and also re-filed part of the case in state court in April 2023 — notably after the three-year statute of limitations had run out.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed most of the lower federal court decision but allowed TST to revive their defamation claims if they could specify what exactly had been said about them that was false and defamatory.

Apparently unable to do so, The Satanic Temple voluntarily dismissed the federal case against us.

Meanwhile, in 2022, TST sued Newsweek for writing about our case back in October 2021. The Satanic Temple dragged us into those proceedings to give depositions, but Newsweek seems to be prevailing with just one claim remaining and a bunch of embarrassing stuff coming out about TST.

TST sued a woman in Texas for making TikTok videos critical of them, after first forcing her to record a pretty upsetting retraction. This is despite the fact that she was right.

TST has threatened more people than we can make a reliable count of with litigation both before and after us.

The Satanic Temple's agents have stalked and harassed us and our loved ones, and there have been long periods of misery and where it seemed like the courts would let them keep doing this sort of thing indefinitely.

But today we won.

The Satanic Temple has lost every step of the way and shown themselves to be a toxic, abusive religious organization to everyone who has bothered to pay attention — tho unfortunately, too few people have.

Thank you all for your support over these long 4+ years.

Based on their pattern of behavior, The Satanic Temple is likely to appeal this loss or perhaps invent a new pretext to continue this SLAPP in a new venue. We know that.

The Satanic Temple, its owners, and lawyers have had had no argument justifying the last 1635 days beyond their wealth and desire to hurt and intimidate people. But TST also should have much bigger issues to deal with than lighting money on fire by continuing to come after us.

So, maybe The Satanic Temple will finally walk away now. They're definitely more vulnerable now than they have been in a long time.

Please let people know what The Satanic Temple is and how they behave, and also that however scary they seem, if you stand up to them you can win.

When it comes to The Satanic Temple, there's always more, and it's always worse, but they are at least as incompetent as they are malicious. They are ghouls, to be sure, but not ones who can survive any light on their actions.

So Ave Satanas, and Hail Lucifer the Lightbringer

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at The Big Picture:

When ABC settled with Donald Trump to the tune of $15 million, capitulating in a defamation case in which Trump would need to argue he is not actually an adjudicated rapist but rather just a sexual assaulter, observers of our descent into authoritarianism groaned. Bill Kristol of The Bulwark wrote, “ABC’s settlement with Trump feels like it could be an inflection point in the Orbanization of our politics. I hope it isn’t.” He’s referring here to Prime Minister Victor Orbán, a two-bit dictator and Putin apologist who rules the country of Hungary in Eastern Europe. Orbán would be less consequential in a normal world, but the MAGA right has elevated him to hero status because of his defiant calls to establish an illiberal government. In illiberal states, you have only the trappings of democracy. Elections are held, but they are fundamentally unfair because the media and big business are all behind the guy at the top. Balloting is designed to give an air of legitimacy to the regime, but there is no substantial path to power, even for a robust opposition. You can spot an illiberal state—one suffering from Orbánization—by some key indicia, which political analyst and commentator Fareed Zakaria discussed some 25 years ago when he warned of the rise of “illiberalism” in certain parts of the democratic West:

Consolidation of executive power via a charismatic leader;

Populism targeting minorities and the monitoring of civil society;

Curbs on academia and curricula and restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly;

Targeted repression of opponents; and

Abuse of state financial power and state resources.

Donald Trump is not yet in power for his second term, and already we are seeing all five of these indicia flash warning signs. Today I’m going to focus on a few examples of Trump-syle Orbánization. But in so doing, I choose not to wring my hands over the inevitable decline of the U.S. into something that resembles Hungary or, even worse, Russia. Instead, I want to highlight how existing democratic guardrails, if supported by the U.S. court system, independent media, and civil society at large, can prevent such a slide. While the threat of illiberal rule has grown acutely real, so too has our ability and determination to defeat it.

Republicans target Trump’s political opponents in a report

Trump has long promised to seek vengeance upon his political enemies, and chief among them is former Republican House member Liz Cheney. In 2021, she bucked her party and voted to impeach Donald Trump for his actions on and around January 6, when he sought to overturn the 2020 election first by conspiracy and then by encouraging a mob to attack the Capitol during the electoral count. Later, Cheney accepted an appointment to the January 6 Committee, where she helped lead public hearings to expose the extent of Trump’s derogation of duty and criminality. For these perceived transgressions, Cheney was booted from the GOP and defeated in a primary in her home state of Wyoming. And she has been the frequent target of Trump’s musings, including that she ought to face televised military tribunals and violent consequences for her policies and actions.

To undermine Cheney and the rest of the January 6 Committee, Republicans formed a special committee to investigate the investigators—a standard move for Republicans seeking to muddy the waters. This week, that committee, led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who apparently was still smarting from the unproven suggestion by the Committee that he had led insurrectionists on a private tour of the Capitol in advance of the attack, released a preliminary report seeking to reshape the narrative around January 6. In that report, Loudermilk recommends that the FBI investigate Cheney over her handling of witnesses, in particular the way she convinced star witness and former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to reverse her earlier statements about what she’d seen and heard. Loudermilk highlighted Cheney’s interaction with Hutchinson and claimed Cheney illegally coached testimony and turned her against her attorney, Stefan Passantino. Cassidy wound up altering the testimony she had previously given the Committee.

Truth, courage, and the Constitution will safeguard the Committee

The actual series of events, based on the facts Hutchinson provided the Committee, was quite different. Hutchinson testified that it was Passantino who had actively discouraged her from offering fully truthful and complete testimony before the Committee, even while promising her lucrative employment with the man paying the legal bills. “The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson said Passantino told her. “We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world.” That Cheney uncovered this blatant effort to obstruct justice should be celebrated, not condemned. And the record is clear that Cheney did nothing wrong in seeking to discover and expose the truth. If anything, it is Passantino who should have been investigated and charged for interfering with a witness’s testimony. The Loudermilk report is a chilling reminder, however, that Trump and the MAGA right are quite serious when they say they intend to use the Justice Department to punish Trump’s enemies. That threat is now heightened by the prospect of Trump lackey Kash Patel as FBI Director. Patel has been open about his plans to pursue investigations and charges against Trump’s political opponents. That Loudermilk advanced such a disgraceful report and recommendation against a former GOP colleague is a clear sign of how low the party has descended and how far sycophants within it will go to please Trump. But the January 6 Committee members don’t seem intimidated. In a Tuesday statement, Cheney described the report as “a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth,” adding that “no reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”

[...]

Trump’s threats to cancel broadcast licenses are empty

It’s common to assume that the craven capitulation by ABC in Trump’s defamation case was in reaction to Trump’s threats to cancel its broadcast license. Trump has made similar threats to CBS, claiming without evidence that the network had improperly edited Kamala Harris’s interview on 60 Minutes to make her answer sound more intelligible. (This is ironic, given that Trump canceled on the same interview and consistently sounds unintelligible, requiring major media to “sane wash” his speeches.) But as ABC’s and CBS’s lawyers no doubt know, Trump’s threats to use the power of the FCC to revoke the networks’ licenses are a paper tiger. First of all, Trump has made this threat on at least 15 occasions, according to a review by CNN. It noted, “His anti-broadcasting broadsides – against CBS, ABC, NBC, and even Fox – are almost always in reaction to interview questions he dislikes or programming he detests.” It’s becoming hard to take seriously the man who cries “Revoke!” Besides, canceling a network’s broadcast license because the president doesn’t like what it said about him would run smack into First Amendment challenges and almost certainly not survive them. The FCC agrees. At one point Trump tweeted an attack on NBC News’ reporting, writing, “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!” Then-FCC Chair Ajit Pai responded that the agency lacked authority to revoke its license in this manner.

[...]

Media guardrails can be strengthened through Anti-SLAPP laws

Trump’s goal here, of course, is to intimidate the press and cause them to think twice about printing anything negative about Trump. That is why it’s quite important to shore up independent media, even while papers owned by larger corporations and billionaires capitulate. It’s important to begin enacting or enforcing anti-SLAPP laws against the President-elect and any others who want to use the threat of lawsuits to chill free speech. A SLAPP suit is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” meaning a complaint designed to silence and intimidate parties from speaking up or organizing. Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to prevent parties from using the courts and threats of a lawsuit to intimidate those exercising their First Amendment rights—exactly the kind of thing Trump is attempting.

[...]

A long way to go before Orbánization

These examples help demonstrate that Trump is a long way from the kind of grip that Viktor Orbán has on his country. In Hungary, Orbán maintains a stranglehold on the media, described by the Associated Press as a “sprawling pro-government media empire that’s dominated the country’s political discourse for more than a decade.” We rightfully should decry the kind of editorial capitulation we have seen lately in the U.S., where, for example, major papers’ billionaire owners at the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times thwarted their own editorial board’s endorsements of Kamala Harris, all in an attempt to suck up to Trump. Many such owners have business before the government concerning their other industries and concerns, and they’d apparently prefer not to see them endangered because one of their less profitable revenue centers decided to speak out against Trump. But such obsequious behavior, however repugnant, is still a far cry from the entire nation being dominated only by right-wing media, with no negative stories about Trump allowed to be published or broadcast anywhere. The more times Trump tries and fails to punish the media for its negative coverage, the less fearful many will grow of Trump. This includes his toothless threats to jail his political enemies. It includes his nonsensical threats to revoke broadcast licenses. And it includes his current efforts to intimidate reporters and pollsters through civil lawsuits that are destined to be tossed from court. Acts of resistance, whether from Liz Cheney or the Des Moines Register, need to be uplifted and publicized widely. The public must understand there remain leaders and news outlets that are unafraid of Donald Trump and will stand with their backs straight to face down his threats. This is not to suggest that the danger Trump poses is not real and imminent. We are admittedly closer than ever before to losing the liberal democracy and the republic we have kept for nearly 250 years. But the Orbánization of the U.S. is not an inevitability. Indeed, it is arguably Trump who faces an uphill fight from here. Trump still lacks many of the tools and much of the power Orbán has in his own country to seize full effective control of all media and stamp out all opposition. Trump likes to talk big, but his actions are often relatively diminished and inconsequential.

Jay Kuo wrote in The Big Picture on how America should resist the Orbánization of the USA under illiberal fascist demagogue Donald Trump.

[elladastinkardiamou]

This week's newsletter from AthensLive is out:

* Dimitriades is nowhere to be found in the court hearing for his SLAPP

* A Grieving Mother testifies on Tempi train accident - and shakes Greece

* Landmark ruling against Greece from the European Court for Human Rights

Journalists and media outlets who revealed the “Greek Watergate” appeared in the court hearing this week amidst a wave of solidarity. The lawsuit, widely deemed as SLAPP, came from PM’s nephew Dimitriades, his chief of staff when the scandal broke out. Dimitriades did not appear in court.

The mother of a Tempi train accident victim testified in the relevant Parliamentary Committee and spoke the truth to power. You would hardly find her testimony in Greek mainstream media. A day after, Politico revealed that the ND government dismissed a call from the European public prosecutor to take action over the potential criminal liability of two former transport ministers after the deadly train collision.

In a landmark ruling, the European Court for Human Rights condemned Greece for identifying HIV-positive drug addicts accused of being illegal sex workers. Five of these women are long dead. Justice came late. 

Read and share this week's updates on the events and developments in Greece here: https://steadyhq.com/en/athenslivegr/posts/43c0edf0-04ef-447d-8f62-db09916bfe5f

For anyone with a wish or need to follow and to gain an insight into recent events in Greece and to read and support independent and investigative journalism in English, the weekly newsletter from AthensLive should be a core element in the reading flow.

If you want the best overview of the events and developments in Greece right now, this is the place to go. Not the mainstream Greek news, but independent journalism with sharp analysis and links to interesting and important topics from a variety of sources.

Become a member and get the newsletter in your inbox every week here:

https://steadyhq.com/en/athenslivegr/newsletter/sign_up

[computer430]

Why Bulk Buying the Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU is a Smart Move for PC Builders

In the ever-evolving landscape of computer hardware, the Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU may seem like a relic from the past. Released in 2008, it was once a powerhouse for budget-conscious builders, offering dual-core performance at an affordable price. Despite its age, bulk buying the E8200 remains a savvy choice for many PC builders today. This article explores the reasons why purchasing this CPU in bulk can be a smart move.

1. Affordability and Cost Savings

One of the most compelling reasons to consider bulk buying the E8200 is cost efficiency. When you purchase in bulk, vendors often offer significant discounts, making each unit more affordable than buying individually. This is particularly beneficial for builders who may be assembling multiple systems, whether for resale, educational purposes, or personal use. The initial investment can be recouped quickly, especially if you plan to sell custom builds or refurbish older systems.

2. Availability of Components

As technology progresses, newer CPU models often lead to older ones being phased out. This can create a scarcity of certain components, making them more expensive. However, buying in bulk allows you to stock up on E8200 CPUs before they become hard to find or prohibitively expensive. This foresight is crucial for businesses that rely on consistent hardware for their builds. By having a reliable supply of E8200 CPUs on hand, builders can avoid interruptions and maintain productivity.

3. Versatility in Builds

The Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 is a versatile CPU that can power a range of systems, from basic desktops to lightweight gaming rigs. It’s particularly well-suited for tasks like web browsing, office applications, and even light gaming with the right GPU. Bulk buying this CPU allows builders to target various markets — whether they’re creating budget-friendly systems for students or entry-level machines for casual gamers.

Moreover, the E8200 is compatible with a wide array of motherboards, making it easier to integrate into existing builds or refurbish older systems. This flexibility ensures that builders can cater to different needs without having to invest in numerous different CPU models.

4. Sustainability and E-Waste Reduction

In an age where sustainability is becoming increasingly important, bulk buying older CPUs like the E8200 contributes to reducing electronic waste. Many PCs that were retired can be revitalized with an E8200, giving them a second life. By purchasing in bulk, builders can effectively refurbish older systems, offering cost-effective solutions to consumers while promoting recycling and sustainability.

This practice not only benefits the environment but also allows builders to provide budget-friendly options to those who might not need the latest technology. As a result, the E8200 can serve as a bridge for users who want decent performance without the hefty price tag of modern CPUs.

5. Overclocking Potential

For enthusiasts, the E8200 has some overclocking potential, allowing tech-savvy builders to push the CPU beyond its stock performance levels. This can provide a significant performance boost for those willing to tinker. Bulk buying means that builders can experiment with multiple units, trying different configurations and settings without worrying about the cost of each individual CPU.

Overclocking can also add value to a custom build, making it more attractive to potential buyers who are interested in performance without a premium price.

6. Building Knowledge and Skill

For new PC builders or those looking to sharpen their skills, working with the E8200 can provide an excellent learning opportunity. Its architecture is simpler compared to modern CPUs, making it easier for beginners to understand how a CPU interacts with other components. Buying in bulk allows novices to experiment freely, making mistakes and learning from them without the fear of wasting high-end, expensive hardware.

7. Community and Support

Despite its age, the Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 still has a community of enthusiasts and support online. Bulk buyers can benefit from the wealth of knowledge available, including guides, forums, and troubleshooting tips. This community support can be invaluable for builders looking to optimize their builds or solve specific issues.

Conclusion

In summary, bulk buying the Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU offers numerous advantages for PC builders. From cost savings and availability to versatility and sustainability, this aging processor still holds value in today’s market. Whether you’re a hobbyist, a small business owner, or an educator, investing in bulk E8200 CPUs can enhance your projects while providing efficient, budget-friendly computing solutions. In a world where high-performance doesn’t always need to come at a high price, the E8200 remains a relevant and smart choice for those looking to maximize their hardware investments.

Looking to buy the SLAPP Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU in bulk FROM VSTL?

If you’re looking to buy the SLAPP Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU in bulk, you’re making a smart choice for budget-conscious PC builds. This reliable processor offers solid performance for everyday tasks and light gaming, making it perfect for refurbishing older systems or creating cost-effective setups. Bulk purchasing not only saves you money but also ensures a steady supply for your projects. With its wide compatibility and proven track record, the E8200 remains a favored option among builders looking to maximize value without sacrificing quality.

[socialjusticefail]

This article is talking about all of the things that shows Musk is not a free speech absolutist.

[wausaupilot]

Wisconsin Democrats want to ban sham lawsuits as GOP senator continues fight against local news site

The bill Democrats unveiled Tuesday would allow people to ask a judge to dismiss a lawsuit against them if they believe the suit is a baseless challenge over their exercise of free speech.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Democrats on Tuesday proposed barring the use of expensive, sham lawsuits to silence criticism after a Republican state senator was accused of trying to bankrupt a local news outlet for reporting on his alleged use of a homophobic slur. The Wausau Pilot & Review reported in 2021 that local businessman Cory Tomczyk, who became a state senator in January, called a…

[andritambunan]

Latest for The Intercept

Pamela Lopez, a lobbyist in California, poses for a portrait at the California State Capitol on June 12, 2023, in Sacramento, Calif. Pamela says Democratic Assemblyman Matt Dababneh sexually harassed her in 2016 and filed a formal complaint with the state assembly. However, Dababneh sued her for defamation. He has always denied her allegations. Being sued for defamation took an enormous financial and mental toll on Pamela Lopez.

As a lobbyist in California, Pamela Lopez was no stranger to inappropriate behavior. “Sexual harassment was endemic to the political environment,” she said. When she was first starting out in her career, an official at a state agency she needed to speak to on behalf of her clients sent her an email saying he had a foot fetish and would only meet with her if she had lunch with him while wearing open-toed sandals. “Everybody kind of ignored it and looked the other way,” she said.

Then in 2016, she says, Democratic Assembly Member Matt Dababneh followed her into the bathroom at a co-ed bachelor party and masturbated in front of her, demanding that she touch him. She refused. She alleges that he ejaculated into the toilet, and as he left the bathroom, he told her not to tell anyone. “It was just absolutely terrifying,” she said.

At first, Lopez didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to her because she assumed she would be the one who would be punished professionally. “Somehow I will be blamed for this,” she recalled thinking. “I will be slut-shamed, people will not believe me.” That changed as #MeToo started to take off. “There is strength in numbers,” she said. She “wanted to make sure that the person who had hurt me did not potentially go on to hurt others.” She eventually named him in a 2017 Los Angeles Times article and filed a formal complaint with the state Assembly. (An Assembly committee eventually found that he “more likely than not” exposed himself to her). She held a press conference around the same time to announce the complaint.

Nine months later, Dababneh sued her for defamation. (Bryce Covert)

[wwwdlabrie]

🎂Happy BDay @Traxamillion RIP my brotha & #BayArea Super Producer 1/2 marked 1 year since you passed 😢 So many great memories. 👀👂🏿👂🏾👂🏼👂🏽👂Classic 🌏🌎🌍Hit Collab @DLabrie produced by #Traxamillion #PITYPATT ft. @keyannacelina & @ritaforte #DJbackside of @olivestagency Exclusive on @bandcamp #LinkinBio Also check out @rdv_promo Tribute to #Trax Hits 🔗 in Bio other #DLabrie Music Collabs like 🧛🏿‍♂️🧛🏽‍♀️🦇 #VampireNETW3RK ft. "Traxamillion" & other #SanJose #HipHop Legends #bandcamp + Pix, Exclusive Videos in the Studio working on Hit Songs & discussing our futures in "Hip Hop" + Videos at #TheSlappAddict Release Party #LinkinBio #MrNETW3RK #RonDavouxRecords #RDV #RDVpromo #Icreate258 #408 #SultanBanks #Slapp #Hyphy #SlappAddict #Sideshow #SuperHyphy #Grownmanon #SanFranciscoAnthem #ThatsmyWord #AboutUs #Glamourouslifestyle #454 (at Bay Area, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpRegupuKuE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thoughtfullyblogger]

SLAPP: Mάστιγα για τη δημοσιογραφία oι καταχρηστικές αγωγές Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation

ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΕΣ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΕΡΟ – SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation Οι στρατηγικές αγωγές με στόχο τη φίμωση της ενημέρωσης, όπως περιγράφονται πλέον με τον διεθνή όρο SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation), εξελίσσονται σε μάστιγα για τη δημοσιογραφία. Έχουν ως στόχο την ηθική και οικονομική εξόντωση δημοσιογράφων, πολιτών και ΜΜΕ γεκότερα και βρίσκονται σε ευθεία…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why is this Canadian university scared of you seeing its Privacy Impact Assessment?

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Barbra Streisand is famous for many things: her exciting performances on the big screen, the small screen, and the stage; her Grammy-winning career as a musician (she's a certified EGOT!); and for all the times she's had to correct people who've added an extra vowel to the spelling of her first name (I can relate!).

But a thousand years from now, her legacy is likely to be linguistic, rather than artistic. The "Streisand Effect" – coined by Mike Masnick – describes what happens when someone tries to suppress a piece of information, only to have that act of attempted suppression backfire by inciting vastly more interest in the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

The term dates to 2003, when Streisand sued the website Pictopia and its proprietors for $50m for reproducing an image from the publicly available California Coastal Records Project (which produces a timeseries of photos of the California coastline in order to track coastal erosion). The image ("Image 3850") incidentally captured the roofs of Streisand's rather amazing coastal compound, which upset Streisand.

But here's the thing: before Streisand's lawsuit, Image 3850 had only been viewed six times. After she filed the case, another 420,000 people downloaded that image. Not only did Streisand lose her suit (disastrously so – she was ordered to pay the defendants' lawyers $177,000 in fees), but she catastrophically failed in her goal of keeping this boring, obscure photo from being seen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Streisand has since called the suit "a mistake." On the one hand, that is very obviously true, but on the other hand, it's still admirable, given how many other failed litigants went to their graves insisting that their foolish and expensive legal gambit was, in fact, very smart and we are all very stupid for failing to understand that.

Which brings me to Ian Linkletter and the Canadian Privacy Library. Linkletter is the librarian and founder of the nonprofit Canadian Privacy Library, a newish online library that collects and organizes privacy-related documents from Canadian public institutions. Linkletter kicked off the project with the goal of collecting the Privacy Impact Assessments from every public university in Canada, starting in his home province of BC.

These PIAs are a legal requirement whenever a public university procures a piece of software, and they're no joke. Ed-tech vendors are pretty goddamned cavalier when it comes to student privacy, as Linkletter knows well. Back in 2020, Linkletter was an ed-tech specialist for the University of British Columbia, where he was called upon to assess Proctorio, a "remote invigilation" tool that monitored remote students while they sat exams.

This is a nightmare category of software, a mix of high-tech phrenology (vendors claim that they can tell when students are cheating by using "AI" to analyze their faces); arrogant techno-sadism (vendors requires students – including those sharing one-room apartments with "essential worker" parents on night shifts who sleep during the day – to pan their cameras around to prove that they are alone); digital racism (products are so bad at recognizing Black faces that some students have had to sit exams with multiple task-lights shining directly onto their faces); and bullshit (vendors routinely lie about their tools' capabilities and efficacy).

Worst: remote invigilation is grounded in the pedagogically bankrupt idea that learning is best (or even plausibly) assessed through high-stakes testing. The kind of person who wants to use these tools generally has no idea how learning works and thinks of students as presumptively guilty cheats. They monitor test-taking students in realtime, and have been known to jiggle test-takers' cursors impatiently when students think too long about their answers. Remote invigilation also captures the eye-movements of test-takers, flagging people who look away from the screen while thinking for potential cheating. No wonder that many students who sit exams under these conditions find themselves so anxious that they vomit or experience diarrhea, carefully staring directly into the camera as they shit themselves or vomit down their shirts, lest they be penalized for looking away or visiting the toilet.

Linkletter quickly realized that Proctorio is a worst-in-class example of a dreadful category. The public-facing materials the company provided about its products were flatly contradicted by the materials they provided to educators, where all the really nasty stuff was buried. The company – whose business exploded during the covid lockdowns – is helmed by CEO Mike Olsen, a nasty piece of work who once doxed a child who criticized him in an online forum:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#moral-exemplar

Proctorio's products are shrouded in secrecy. In 2020, for reasons never explained, all the (terrible, outraged) reviews of its browser plugin disappeared from the Chrome store:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/04/hypervigilance/#radical-transparency

Linkletter tweeted his alarming findings, publishing links to the unlisted, but publicly available Youtube videos where Proctorio explained how its products really worked. Proctorio then sued Linkletter, for copyright infringement.

Proctorio's argument is that by linking to materials that they published on Youtube with permissions that let anyone with the link see them, Linkletter infringed upon their copyright. When Linkletter discovered that these videos already had publicly available links, indexed by Google, in the documentation produced by other Proctorio customers for students and teachers, Proctorio doubled down and argued that by collecting these publicly available links to publicly available videos, Linkletter had still somehow infringed on their copyright.

Luckily for Linkletter, BC has an anti-SLAPP law that is supposed to protect whistleblowers facing legal retaliation for publishing protected speech related to matters of public interest (like whether BC's flagship university has bought a defective and harmful product that its students will be forced to use). Unluckily for Linkletter, the law is brand new, lacks jurisprudence, and the courts have decided that he can't use a SLAPP defense and his case must go to trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/20/links-arent-performances/#free-ian-linkletter

Linkletter could have let that experience frighten him away from the kind of principled advocacy that riles up deep-pocketed, thin-skinned bullies. Instead, he doubled down, founding the Canadian Privacy Library, with the goal of using Freedom of Information requests to catalog all of Canada's post-secondary institutions' privacy assessments. Given how many bodies he found buried in Proctorio's back yard, this feels like the kind of thing that should be made more visible to Canadians.

There are 25 public universities in BC, and Linkletter FOI'ed them all. Eleven provided their PIAs. Eight sent him an estimate of what it would cost them (and thus what they would charge) to assemble these docs for him. Six requested extensions.

One of them threatened to sue.

Langara College is a 19,000-student spinout of Vancouver Community College whose motto is Eruditio Libertas Est ("Knowledge is Freedom"). Linkletter got their 2019 PIA for Microsoft's Office 365 when he FOI'ed the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (universities often recycle one another's privacy impact assessments, which is fine).

That's where the trouble started. In June, Langara sent Linkletter a letter demanding that he remove their Office 365 PIA; the letter CC'ed two partners in a law firm, and accused Linkletter of copyright infringement. But that's not how copyright – or public records – work. As Linkletter writes, the PIA is "a public record lawfully obtained through an FOI request" – it is neither exempted from disclosure, nor is it confidential:

https://www.privacylibrary.ca/legal-threat/

Langara claims that in making their mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment for Office 365 available, Linkletter has exposed them to "heightened risks of data breaches and privacy incidents," they provided no evidence to support this assertion.

I think they're full of shit, but you don't have to take my word for it. After initially removing the PIA, Linkletter restored it, and you can read it for yourself:

https://www.privacylibrary.ca/langara-college-privacy-impact-assessments/

I read it. It is pretty goddamned anodyne – about as exciting as looking at the roof of Barbra Streisand's mansion.

Sometimes, where there's smoke, there's only Streisand – a person who has foolishly decided to use the law to bully a weaker stranger out of disclosing some innocuous and publicly available fact about themselves. But sometimes, where there's smoke, there's fire. A lot of people who read my work are much more familiar with ed-tech, privacy, and pedagogy than I am. If that's you, maybe you want to peruse the Langara PIA to see if they are hiding something because they're exposing their students to privacy risks and don't want that fact to get out.

There are plenty of potential privacy risks in Office 365! The cloud version of Microsoft Office contains a "bossware" mode that allows bosses to monitor their workers' keystrokes for spelling, content, and accuracy, and produce neat charts of which employees are least "productive." The joke's on the boss, though: Office 365 also has a tool that lets you compare your department's usage of Office 365 to your competitors, which is another way of saying that Microsoft is gathering your trade secrets and handing it out to your direct competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

So, yeah, there are lots of "features" in Office 365 that could give rise to privacy threats when it is used at a university. One hopes that Langara correctly assessed these risks and accounted for them in its PIA, which would mean that they are bullying Linkletter out of reflex, rather than to cover up wrongdoing. But there's only one way to find out: go through the doc that Linkletter has restored to public view.

Linkletter has excellent pro bono representation from Norton Rose Fulbright, a large and powerful law-firm that is handling his Proctorio case. Linkletter writes, "they have put this public college on notice that any proceeding is liable to be dismissed pursuant to the Protection of Public Participation Act, BC’s anti-SLAPP legislation."

Langara has now found themselves at the bottom of a hole, and if they're smart, they'll stop digging.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/01/eruditio-libertas-est/#streisand-v-linkletter

Image: Copyright (C) 2002 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Streisand_Estate.jpgbr>

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Langara College (modified) https://langara.ca/

Fair use (parody) https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1104

Fair dealing (parody) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1468015

[queersatanic]

November 2023 court activity with The Satanic Temple

If you've been looking for a way to more passively keep up with us and The Satanic Temple, or just want to help with our legal fees more regularly, consider becoming a Patreon supporter.

Although we continue to win in court, #TST continues to use the process to harass us and drain our finances.

It'll be four years in April, and it may be that much again before The Satanic Temple exhausts all of their appeals and losing arguments against us.

But the work continues, and TST is an abusive religious organization that has to be stopped.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andy Craig at The UnPopulist:

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and Space X and owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, styles himself as one of society’s great champions of free speech. He has explicitly framed X, his rebrand of Twitter, as a singular haven for the free flow of ideas. A self-professed “free speech absolutist,” Musk has a rather grandiose view of his role in the battle between free speech and censorship, at one point even suggesting that reforming Twitter from its allegedly left-favoring ways amounted to “a battle for the future of civilization.” As Musk sees it, he is on a crusade against woke censors tirelessly committed to stifling the free exchange of ideas. When asked why he bought Twitter on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Musk revealed that he did so to stop it from being used as an “information technology weapon” intended to spread the speech-restricting “woke mind virus” to the whole world. “In order for the virus to propagate, it must suppress opposing viewpoints,” he said. Musk claims he bought Twitter to stop the spread.

Genuine defense of free expression is a noble, worthwhile endeavor—which makes it all the more unfortunate that Musk, like many self-styled free speech crusaders, is anything but a friend of the right to speak freely. He is arbitrary about the kind of speech he allows on his platform, construing the word “cis” a slur and threatening to ban accounts who use it, and on occasion disallowing negative coverage of Tesla. That might be hypocritical but ultimately his prerogative and not a violation of speech rights. But what’s truly dumbfounding is that while claiming to oppose censorship, Musk has repeatedly attacked the First Amendment rights of those who have said things he doesn’t like. In court and elsewhere, Musk advocates censorship by the state, sometimes putting his effectively unlimited resources into undermining core legal protections for free expression. Musk is hardly alone in pretending to fight censorship while trying to expand it, though he’s the most glaring embodiment today of the inverted relationship between free speech rhetoric and actually living out free speech principles. That makes him a threat to free speech, not its greatest defender.

Defending Free Speech By … Silencing Critics?

Last year, progressive advocacy organization Media Matters reported that, on Musk’s X, major corporate advertisements were running next to overt white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. Given that such content had proliferated on the site since Musk’s takeover, this finding was hardly surprising. Overt bigotry is essentially the only thing more permitted (and encouraged) under Musk’s management than on pre-Musk Twitter. 

[...]

There was no dispute that the screenshots Media Matters provided were real, not fakes. Musk’s only argument was that they were unrepresentative, which was hardly the point given that major American companies reasonably expect their ads to appear next to posts praising Adolf Hitler exactly zero times. Despite lacking a serious legal claim, Musk promptly threatened a “thermonuclear lawsuit,” later following that up with even more absurd threats against not just Media Matters but anybody who donated to the non-profit. Musk’s legal case against Media Matters actually managed to validate the watchdog’s reporting, since his argument tacitly confirmed that the ads in fact appeared next to the hateful content in question; his only claim was the ads weren’t juxtaposed next to offensive posts as frequently as some believed. Most audaciously of all, Musk characterized his lawsuit as a defense of free speech—all the while he was literally asking the government to punish true, constitutionally protected speech he didn’t like.

Worse, in a flagrant bit of judge-shopping, Musk filed his lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas—infamous for being the most MAGA-friendly federal court in the nation—despite the fact that neither he nor Media Matters have any real connection to the district. But he wasn’t content to leave it at that. Musk also proudly cheered on the attorneys general of both Texas and Missouri who opened criminal investigations into Media Matters, ostensibly for some kind of fraud. The real purpose, however, was plain: to use state power to punish core First Amendment protected speech.

[...] Musk has, on occasion, wound up on the correct side of a free speech fight against foreign governments seeking to coerce him, such as when he stood up to Brazil’s Supreme Court justice who tried to arrest election deniers and those who allegedly undermine electoral institutions. But at other times he’s caved to government demands in craven and non-transparent ways, including succumbing to the demand of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to suppress an unflattering BBC documentary about Modi’s role in a Muslim pogrom. Such fights are common for social media giants, which are global platforms with international reach. In fact, pre-Musk Twitter was known for being one of the most aggressive and reliable resisters, through both litigation and outright non-compliance. Musk’s acquisition took one of the tech world’s staunchest and most effective defenders of free speech and made it a weakened pushover.

Andy Craig writes in The UnPopulist that right-wing X owner Elon Musk’s claims to be a “free speech absolutist” are a sham, as he has censored speech that he doesn’t approve of.

[elladastinkardiamou]

This week's newsletter from AthensLive is out:   Excluded from elections: Most parties to ND’s political right

* It’s official: Greece is worse by far as media freedom than Orban’s Hungary  * Who wants the media to be free? Especially during elections  *“Heavy shadows above the ballot box”

- are the main headlines to be found inside this highly informative weekly must-read from and about Greece. Greece ranked 107th in the Reporters Without Borders annual index. With its score deteriorating, the country gained one place mainly due to Chad’s free fall. The government called RSF ‘unreliable.’ Then, the national news agency buried the news. Two of the six journalists moderating the political election debate among party leaders are connected with kinship to ruling ND officials. Debate strict rules were set by an ‘inter-party committee’, with journalists not even allowed a free question. The government’s latest gift to mainstream TV channels was some 9 million euros because… of the Ukraine war. Fourteen out of 50 parties who filed an application to run for elections were either banned from the Top Court or excluded because their application didn’t go through the Singular Logic electronic system, which manages the procedure. Most of them stand politically to the ND right. Also, this is the first time the elections procedure is managed by Singular Logic after the company had been bought by a decades-old friend of the Mitsotakis family, reports note. 

It cannot be recommended strongly enough to read and share this week's updates on the events and developments in Greece here:

https://steadyhq.com/en/athenslivegr/posts/11f18c09-b7fc-44b2-ac1f-7791ac0e1e81

For anyone with a wish or need to follow and to gain an insight into recent events in Greece and to read and support independent and investigative journalism in English, the weekly newsletter from AthensLive should be a core element in the reading flow.

If you want the best overview of the events and developments in Greece right now, this is the place to go. Not the mainstream Greek news, but independent journalism with sharp analysis and links to interesting and important topics from a variety of sources.

Become a member and get the newsletter in your inbox every week here:

http://bit.ly/2GkVuYt

[netakias]

SLAPP: Mάστιγα για τη δημοσιογραφία oι καταχρηστικές αγωγές Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation

ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΔΕΣ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΕΡΟ – SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation Οι στρατηγικές αγωγές με στόχο τη φίμωση της ενημέρωσης, όπως περιγράφονται πλέον με τον διεθνή όρο SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation), εξελίσσονται σε μάστιγα για τη δημοσιογραφία. Έχουν ως στόχο την ηθική και οικονομική εξόντωση δημοσιογράφων, πολιτών και ΜΜΕ γεκότερα και βρίσκονται σε ευθεία…

[socialjusticefail]

This article is throwing shade at Musk for filing an obvious SLAPP suit. The article writer also throws in some complaints about ADL while saying ADL has the free speech right to convince advertisers to not buy ads on exTwitter.