Olives @olives@social.cleverlibre.org

Also, I think EDRi should just outright reject the AV, rather than put forth a bunch of impossible requirements in the hope that'll get it knocked away that way. No beating around the bush.

https://edri.org/our-work/irish-media-regulator-must-address-dangerous-age-verification-in-its-new-online-safety-code/

"What does the Irish Online Safety Code propose?

The draft Code currently suggests that any service with a minimum age for opening an account must “implement effective measures to detect under-age users and close their accounts”. Seeing this requirement through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it means that the Code would amount to an obligation to use age verification, age estimation or another form of “detect[ion] of underage users”"

#DSA #EU #AgeVerification #Ireland #DigitalServicesAct #privacy

https://reason.com/2024/01/31/the-5th-circuit-says-criminalizing-journalism-is-not-obviously-unconstitutional/

"The 5th Circuit Says Criminalizing Journalism Is Not Obviously Unconstitutional"

"The case involves Priscilla Villarreal, a Laredo gadfly and DIY journalist who was arrested in 2017 for violating Section 39.06(c) of the Texas Penal Code. Under that law, a person who "solicits or receives" information that "has not been made public" from a government official "with intent to obtain a benefit" commits a third-degree felony, punishable by two to 10 years in prison."

"After a Texas judge blocked Villarreal's prosecution, deeming the statute unconstitutionally vague, she filed a federal lawsuit against the officers who were involved in her arrest, arguing that they targeted her because they were irked by her vocal criticism of local law enforcement agencies."

"A federal judge dismissed Villarreal's lawsuit after concluding that the officers were protected by qualified immunity, which allows federal civil rights claims only when they allege misconduct that violated "clearly established" law."

#FirstAmendment

https://reason.com/2024/01/29/utah-would-rather-repeal-social-media-age-check-law-than-defend-it-in-court/

"Rather than defend a clearly unconstitutional measure passed to "protect" kids from social media, the government of Utah intends to repeal the law.

Last year, Utah became the first state to pass a law limiting minors' social media use to those who had parental consent and requiring platforms to provide a way for parents to access their kids' accounts. It kicked off a wave of similar measures in statehouses across the country—laws that would require anyone using social media to prove their age through such methods as submitting biometric data or a government-issued ID."

#privacy

https://reason.com/2024/01/30/alabama-killed-an-inmate-with-an-experimental-execution-method-ohio-could-be-next/

"After Alabama's grisly nitrogen hypoxia execution of inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith last week, it looks like another state may adopt the method in a bid to resume executing inmates after lethal injection drugs have become nearly impossible to obtain."

#HumanRights #CriminalJustice

A strange idea I saw from a European group is to get the government to run a social media site because they will supposedly handle human rights better than the private sector.

Governments, and yes, European governments (even if they pretend to care about human rights for marketing purposes), are actually some of the biggest violators of human rights around.

The best they can often muster is "at least we are better than x government" which is like Facebook saying "at least we are better than data broker x in protecting your privacy".

To Ursula von der Leyen, and friends, throwing the word "freedom of expression" around a bunch doesn't actually mean that "freedom of expression" is actually meaningfully protected.

https://themarkup.org/prediction-bias/2024/01/29/senators-demand-justice-department-halt-funding-to-predictive-policing-programs

"A group of seven Democratic members of Congress has issued a public letter demanding the Department of Justice stop issuing grants to fund predictive policing projects, unless the agency “can ensure that grant recipients will not use such systems in ways that have a discriminatory impact.”"

#HumanRights #CriminalJustice

https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/29/meta-will-share-data-with-researchers-studying-online-well-being/

It's interesting how the "think of the children" folks will complain when they work with researchers *and* when they don't work with researchers.

While I'm not particularly fond of Facebook, is there a "right decision" here?

As for the rest of the article, I don't think there is a right thing a company could say, as anything, even if reasonable, could be spun against them.

For instance, let's say a company doesn't really want to open the can of worms, and to really get in users' faces, that itself might not be an unlikely scenario. But, then, how do you say that?

So, there isn't really anything that I can really say about it.

I've said this before but this sort of short termist antic never really seems to actually save them.

Facebook virtue signalled about "safety" in all kinds of ways that aren't effective or proportionate, and here they are being dragged before another committee.