Body Cam Video Shows Cop Killing A Harmless Dog Within 15 Seconds Of Arriving At The Scene

from the 'fast-moving-situation'-means-more-than-a-cop-shooting-quick dept

I don't often write about cops killing dogs. It's not that it's a rarity. It actually happens all the time.

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it's an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an "epidemic" and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

Cops kill dogs at an alarming rate. And it remains alarming, despite the increased possibility of them encountering actually dangerous dogs. True, cops are often the first to respond to calls about stray dogs. But they also put themselves in danger by wandering into fenced areas meant to keep dogs contained when pursuing suspects or just meandering around in hopes of finding something that justifies their intrusion.

More than half of our federal court districts have held that killing or wounding a family pet is a "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment. Nonetheless, this behavior persists, with cops seemingly willing to shoot any animal that heads towards them, even when propelled by nothing more than their innate friendliness and curiosity.

Being trigger-happy in the presence of animals can have more serious consequences. Cops have wounded and killed human beings while trying to shoot dogs that had the temerity to ignore shouted orders.

A recent lawsuit [PDF] has highlighted another senseless killing of a family pet by a cop. (While multiple outlets covered this lawsuit, Law and Crime actually posted the complaint, which is why we're linking to that site.)

According to the lawsuit, Wendy Love and Jay Hamm had stopped in the parking lot of a vacant business to do some work on a second-hand ice machine and give their three dogs a chance to stretch. The business had no name on the front and all the windows were covered. There were no other people or vehicles in the lot.

However, the business owner was apparently monitoring still-live CCTV cameras. He called the Loveland (CO) police department, asking them to send someone out to remove them from the premises, claiming he was concerned the couple was going to tamper with his locked dumpster. The couple was parked nowhere near the apparently-sacred dumpster nor did they approach it at any time, something admitted by the business owner during his call to dispatch.

Officer Mathew Grashorn was the first to arrive. Within 13 seconds, he had exited his vehicle and mortally wounded the couple's 14-month-old dog.

There's body cam video of the shooting.

It happens so fast it's entirely contained in the camera's 30-second rolling buffer, hence the initial lack of sound. What happens in these 15 seconds is the officer's arrival, which is followed almost immediately by the officer brandishing his weapon. It's unclear which threat justified this action. Was it the people hanging out in a vacant parking lot? Or was it the happy dog approaching him at a medium lope? Whatever it was, it resulted in the dog being shot by the officer. And those shots resulted in the dog dying, euthanized four days later because of the severity of the wounds.

There's something incredibly eerie about the recording. The violence is silent. That disturbing silence is finally interrupted by the distressed shouts of Wendy Love, the first of which is rendered soundless by the body cam's built-in recording features.

This probably won't have much legal relevance, but it's still worth pointing out: the couple accuses the city of fostering this shoot-first behavior in Loveland police officers by continually stressing the importance of protecting local businesses. As the lawsuit notes, this "business-first" mentality has resulted in other acts of police violence. (There are recordings of these incidents as well.)

On June 26, 2020, Walmart suffered no loss when dementia-sufferer and 73-year-old woman Karen Garner walked out of the store without paying for $13.88 of items. When confronted, she gave the items back and attempted to pay for them. Walmart refused and instead called LPD to deal with it. LPD sent multiple officers, including Sergeant Metzler, to locate and tackle Ms. Garner, causing her to suffer a broken and dislocated shoulder. The multiple officers involved did this knowing that Walmart hadn’t suffered any loss. They did it pursuant to the aforementioned policy of making large, demonstrative showings of allegiance to Loveland businesses.

On July 20, 2020, Target contacted Loveland PD to deal with a man (Keenan Stuckey) suffering from mental health issues in their parking lot, requesting that they arrest or remove him even though he was breaking no laws and bothering nobody. Loveland PD sent six officers there in minutes, and they promptly brutalized the man with batons, kicking him, punching him, and doing a pile-driver type of jump atop his lifeless body.

The lawsuit also notes the Loveland PD's internal investigation cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, claiming he reasonably feared for his safety. But if the officer was fearful, he didn't show it (other than the immediate use of his weapon). He could have retreated to the safety of the car he had just exited. He could have stepped behind his still-open door. He could have used any less-lethal weapon to subdue the animal. But he chose to kill.

As if this isn't enough to show just how dangerous law enforcement officers can be, there's this:

Loveland sergeants and officers next discussed together concern that Ms. Love and Mr. Hamm had mentioned sharing what had happened with the media. Sergeant Metzler told Officer Grashorn that “since [Hamm’s] saying he’s going to go to the press, we better scratch him a ticket for something.”

The officers decided they would claim that Herkimer [the dog shot by the officer] had attacked Officer Grashorn. They did in fact tell this lie over and over again. They told this lie to Larimer County Animal Control and to the veterinarians attempting to treat Herkimer.

[...]

This lie was also at the foundation of the Defendant officers’ decision to give Mr. Hamm a ticket for having a “dangerous dog,” a charge that the Larimer County District Attorney’s office later dismissed as not having any basis in fact.

It's not enough that officers can kill people (or their pets) with near impunity. They also have the power to punish people for having their pets killed by an officer. In this case, it appears this was done to get out ahead of the pet owner's attempt to tell his story via social media. With the only recording being in police possession, the "our word against theirs" would have ensured the cops' narrative -- the one about an unsecured, "dangerous" dog -- would receive the most air time and been immediately granted the most credibility.

That's an absurd amount of power. And it comes with so very little accountability. The lawsuit -- even with the seemingly-damning recording -- is still a longshot. And the couple doesn't get to use tax dollars to move their allegations forward. It's coming out of their own pockets while the city gets to defend itself and its officers using unlimited funds provided by Loveland residents. And even if the officer is found to be at fault, he'll likely be indemnified, meaning it won't cost him anything either. The city will just take that judgment money from taxpayers as well.

The whole thing was recorded. There can be no claims that something is being "taken out of context." It shows everything the cop did, which was respond to a possible trespass call with deadly force -- all within 15 seconds of arriving on the scene. The danger was entirely imagined. And it was justified by retconning the encounter with the issuing of a "dangerous animal" citation. It's ugly enough that a pet was killed for no justifiable reason. Attempting to punish the pet owner for witnessing an unjustified act of violence is disgusting.

Filed Under: body cameras, dogs, loveland pd, police

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces On Twitter The Livestreaming On Facebook Of His Signing Of A Bill That Removes 1st Amendment Rights For Both

from the you-did-what-now? dept

We've talked a bunch about just how incredibly unconstitutional Texas's social media content moderation bill, HB20 is, so I don't really need to cover any of that again. You can look it up -- or just read how a court found Florida's similar bill unconstitutional.

Still, the entire point of this bill is to play up a culture war for grandstanding politicians, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants to grandstand with the best of them (even if he's a pathetic copy of some of the other grandstanders in his party). Even so, it still was quite something to see Abbott announce on Twitter that people should watch him on Facebook as he signed the bill into law -- a bill that would attempt to remove the 1st Amendment rights against compelled speech from both companies.

He's doing this on the same day that the Justice Department is suing Texas for its equally unconstitutional anti-abortion "let everyone sue everyone and let the courts sort it out" bill.

I know that some people are concerned about this bill, and what awful things it will do for social media, but all it's really going to do is waste a ton of taxpayer money in Texas, which Abbott and the other faux culture warriors want to use as basically taxpayer-funded campaign dollars to get their names in the headlines, talking about they're "fighting for free speech" when all they're doing is removing 1st Amendment rights, abusing the power the voters entrusted with them, and throwing their money away on lawyers who have nothing legitimate to defend.

It's political theater, with your speech and your tax dollars being held hostage. No one should accept this as reasonable, but these are the times we live in, where corruption and violations of the oath of office for the sake of some dumb culture war are more important than governing and doing what's right.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, compelled speech, content moderation, greg abbott, hb20, social media, texas
Companies: facebook, twitter

Sixth Circuit Reaffirms It's A Fourth Amendment Violation To Chalk Car Tires For Parking Enforcement Purposes

from the folks,-this-is-why-they-play-the-games dept

Two years ago, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals surprised the city of Saginaw, Michigan by finding the process of marking car tires with chalk for parking enforcement violated the Fourth Amendment. The city certainly didn't expect multiple ticketholder Alison Taylor's lawsuit to make it this far. And it certainly didn't expect the Appeals Court to reverse the district court's decision that no Fourth Amendment violation had taken place.

Contrary to expectations, the Appeals Court ruled in 2019 that chalking tires certainly appeared to violate the Fourth Amendment. And the city was unable to successfully argue otherwise. Relying on the Supreme Court's Jones decision, the Appeals Court said the city unreasonably "trespassed" on the private property of residents (that being their cars) to apply the chalk mark -- property still protected by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches despite being parked on public streets.

The argument that this temporary intrusion was excused by the community caretaking function of law enforcement also failed. The court pointed out engaging in revenue-generating enforcement efforts did nothing to take care of the community and the initial trespass occurred when vehicles were still parked legally, giving the government no reasonable suspicion to engage in this intrusion.

That wasn't necessarily a win for Alison Taylor, who decided to sue after she'd amassed fifteen parking tickets. It went back down to the lower court for some fact-finding, giving the city another chance to raise arguments that might allow it to continue utilizing this parking enforcement method.

Well, the case has returned to Sixth Circuit Appeals Court, and the court's conclusions haven't changed. The city raised a new argument during the case's return to the lower level and the Appeals Court [PDF] doesn't like this one either.

This time around, the city argues chalking is actually an administrative search -- yet another warrant exception the government has at its disposal. But if it's an administrative search (as the city argues), it's still an unreasonable search because it eliminates one crucial aspect of these searches: the opportunity for the search target to ascertain compliance with the law before being subjected to this warrantless search.

Generally, when a search is conducted for an administrative purpose and pursuant to a regulatory scheme—such as inspecting a home for compliance with a municipal housing code— the government may justify a warrantless search by showing that it met “reasonable legislative or administrative standards.” This is assessed by “balancing the need to search against the invasion which the search entails.” But it is not a free-for-all for civil officers; among other requirements, “the subject of the search must be afforded an opportunity to obtain precompliance review before a neutral decisionmaker.” This prerequisite removes the City’s practice from the usual administrative-search case, see id.; Liberty Coins LLC, 880 F.3d at 281–82, as there is no such opportunity (which the City does not contest).

Having failed with this definition, the government proposes another: parking on public streets is a "closely-regulated industry" that gives city employees the authority to perform warrantless searches. This argument is even worse, says the Sixth Circuit.

[U]nlike the closely regulated industries of liquor sales, firearm dealing, mining, or automobile junkyards identified by the Supreme Court, municipal parking plainly does not “pose[] a clear and significant risk to the public welfare.” That automobiles are regulated and involved in parking is inconsequential because the exception applies to industries, not objects. So, for example, a state’s statutory scheme authorizing a warrantless inspection of an automobile junkyard resulting in the search of a Ford Mustang may be permissible, but it does not apply to the search of the same convertible parked on a city street.

The city also tried to compare this form of parking enforcement with border crossings and DUI checkpoints -- places where Fourth Amendment rights are presumed to be waived, if not ignored completely, to allow the government to serve its "special needs" (border security, public safety). Even the city seems to have a hard time buying its own argument.

We see no special need here, which defendants concede by admitting that “Ms. Hoskins’s job was not impacted in any respect if she did not chalk tires.” And common-sense commands this conclusion; for nearly as long as automobiles have parked along city streets, municipalities have found ways to enforce parking regulations without implicating the Fourth Amendment. Thus, tire chalking is not necessary to meet the ordinary needs of law enforcement, let alone the extraordinary.

However, the court does allow the parking enforcement officer (the "Ms. Hoskins" mentioned above) qualified immunity for the warrantless trespasses on Alison Taylor's property. Unsurprisingly, the Appeals Court says the officer could not have possibly gathered from almost nonexistent precedent that this was a rights violation. In fact, the only precedent the Appeals Court can find is the Jones decision, which concerns a GPS device and impermissible trespass onto a person's property. That case also involved law enforcement and a parked car, but it's completely understandable that a parking enforcement officer wouldn't equate this decision with the heretofore unchallenged practice of chalking tires.

So, the city will have to find another way to engage in parking enforcement. This may mean the installation of plate readers and surveillance cameras. Or there might be a simpler solution -- one that cities have used for years with few problems or constitutional violations. The court even includes a link in its decision to inform the city of its options.

See, e.g., Amanda Erickson, A Brief History of the Parking Meter, Bloomberg CityLab (April 3, 2012), available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-03/a-brief-history-of-the-parking-meter (last visited Aug. 9, 2021).

Like the last one, this decision is published, which means it's precedent. So, if chalking is in use elsewhere in the circuit (and it almost definitely is), it's a constitutional violation. But, given the fact it's unlikely many drivers will challenge being chalked, it's probably a pretty safe way for city governments to violate rights en masse.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 6th circuit, chalk tires, parking, parking enforcement

Impossibility Of Content Moderation: Scientist Debunking Vaccine Myths Gets A YouTube Strike For Medical Misinfo

from the it's-tougher-than-you-think dept

Here's another one in our never ending series on the impossibility of doing content moderation at scale, and how (all too frequently) people trying to expose bad behavior are punished as if they're promoting bad behavior.

This involves a scientist who streams on YouTube as Scientist Mel, and tries to educate people about science, including debunking bad science takes. This included a recent two hour episode debunking anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. The video does look at a bunch of ridiculous conspiracy theories and scientific claptrap and nonsense... and then debunks it. But, YouTube dinged her channel for misinformation:

And... look, you can see how this happens, right? You have reviewers with limited time and a two hour video is a lot to take in. And in skimming through the video, you will come across conspiracy theory nonsense regarding COVID and COVID treatments. But it's there so that Mel can debunk it. So... Mel appealed the strikes. And YouTube upheld the appeal, claiming "we reviewed your content carefully, and have confirmed that it violates our medical misinformation policy." They were condescendingly nice about it in their form email: "We know this is probably disappointing news, but it's our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all." Yeah, that's not what this is doing, of course.

Of course, as this started to get a bit more attention... on Twitter... suddenly YouTube realized it might have made a mistake, and over the weekend admitted it was a mistake and the strike was removed (and the video returned).

So, in this case, the end result worked out -- but like so many cases, that only happened once the initial "bad" result started to get some attention elsewhere (Twitter being the world's best "consumer complaint" forum).

Of course, I'm sympathetic to both ends of this argument. I can see why this clearly erroneous strike/takedown sucks for Mel. But I can also see exactly how it happens. When tons of people are screaming at every social media site out there to make sure they take down any medical misinformation, and videos often involve (as in this case) multiple hours of content, it's literally impossible to review them completely and understand the context in which the conspiracy theory nonsense was shown. That doesn't excuse YouTube messing up the appeal, of course, but the appeals process apparently isn't particularly robust, and likely suffers from the same limitations as the initial review.

And this kind of issue is only going to get worse and worse as various laws around the world demand that "bad" information be removed quickly or websites will face significant liability.

Filed Under: content moderation, debunking, myths, science, scientist mel
Companies: youtube

Connecticut Court Orders Blogger To Turn Over Electronic Devices To Cop Suing Over Alleged Defamation By Blog's Commenters

from the all-the-wrong-that's-fit-to-issue-as-an-order dept

Things are getting dumber and way less constitutional in a defamation lawsuit filed by a Connecticut law enforcement officer. Lt. Vincent Benvenuto -- despite being the beneficiary of all the official and codified protection and forgiveness government workers only seem willing to give to other government employees -- sued a blogger, demanding the blogger hand over identifying information on commenters who offended the Lieutenant.

Commenters at the We the People Hartford blog -- run by Hartford resident Kevin Brookman -- made allegations that Benvenuto was a bad cop. The cop sued, and targeted the site's owner as if he was personally responsible for users' comments. The comments Benvenuto sued over said -- basically -- that Benvenuto was a cop.

While an officer with the New York Police Department, the comment read, Benvenuto “was racist so they kept him out of queens and Bronx.” Other comments accused the 12-year Hartford police veteran of sleeping on the job, leaking information and making racist and threatening comments.

Any cop accused of racism who decides to take litigious offense to that sort of heated rhetoric hasn't been paying attention. Or if they have been paying attention, they're too thin-skinned to be entrusted with the powers they've been granted. To be a cop is to hold an occupation long associated with bigotry and racism. Most law enforcement agencies can trace their origins back to being tasked with ensuring slave owners maintained control of their slaves. The years have passed, but most police activity still disproportionately targets minorities and provides support for the white status quo. So, to be accused of racism is pretty much inseparable from being accused of being a cop.

That summary of accusations by the Hartford Courant is the short version. The long version can be read in Benvenuto's lawsuit, which lists a whole bunch of presumed causes of action, but none that directly implicate the blog owner. All he did was run a blog. If commenters defamed Benvenuto, the cop is free to sue them directly. But he hasn't done that. He has brought the blog owner to court in hopes of forcing him to turn over information on commenters.

That lawsuit is a mess. Some of its runtime involves accusing commenters of violating Hartford PD policies, suggesting Benvenuto thinks coworkers who don't like him are complaining about him in the comment section of the blog. If so, this is something to be handled by the PD, not by litigation. And, also if so, this suggests Benvenuto is the racist jerkwad commenters allege him to be, because who would know better than the people who work with him?

Some really good questions have been raised by this litigation, but only by people who have covered the lawsuit, rather than the plaintiff or the judge. Unfuckingfortunately, the judge handling the case is apparently easily swayed by the pleadings of an unhappy cop who can't be bothered to direct his energy at the people who allegedly defamed him.

A Connecticut judge has ordered blogger Kevin Brookman — a frequent critic of the Hartford Police Department — to turn over his laptop and cellphone as part of a police lieutenant’s quest to identify and sue anonymous commenters who disparaged him on Brookman’s site.

No doubt this ridiculous and harmful order will be challenged. Almost undoubtedly, the next level in the state court system will return a What The Actual Fuck ruling that forbids the officer from taking possession of the blogger's electronic devices. But, for the time being, the order stands. And it stands as a blatant assault on First Amendment rights, as well as a complete rejection of longstanding Section 230 case law.

No shelter says the judge… because reasons.

“The accusation of racism is particularly offensive in the context of the Hartford Police department which must not only remain free from bias against its own members but also the public at large,” Superior Court Judge Cesar Noble wrote in his decision.

The accusation may be offensive but it's up to the PD to dissuade people that it's racist. Allowing an easily offended cop to commandeer the electronics of a person who did not actually make accusations of racism is a complete perversion of the judicial process. The court is not there to shield the police department for accusations of racism. It is there to determine whether there's any truth to these accusations -- and only when it actually has the accusers in court. All it has right now is the plaintiff and someone the plaintiff has decided to take legal action against, even though this person did not make these claims.

This is nothing more than the court giving someone with an immense amount of power even more power. And for what? To shield the officer and the department he works for from accusations from still-anonymous commenters that racism exists within the PD. This is a terrible ruling and it will only encourage other offended cops in the region to file baseless lawsuits targeting people who should be non-parties. And that's why it's unlikely to survive even the most cursory challenge.

Undoubtedly, it will be difficult for the officer to identify the people behind the supposedly defamatory contents. But that is the way it should be. Anonymous commenting should be protected and, indeed it is, especially in the context of criticizing government employees. Section 230 should make the blog owner immune from bullshit like this, but this has been all too conveniently ignored by the presiding judge -- one who apparently believes the only immunity worth awarding here is one shielding a cop shop from its critics.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, anonymity, anonymous comments, cesar noble, comments, connecticut, defamation, hartford, hartford pd, hartford police department, kevin brookman, section 230, vincent benvenuto

Daily Deal: Knowable Audio Learning Platform

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Damned If You Do; Damned If You Don't: ProPublica's Bizarre Reporting On WhatsApp Abuse Reports

from the come-on-guys dept

I've been struck over the years by how much reporting on technology involves attacking companies for what they do -- even if for totally contradictory reasons. Everything is viewed through the lens of assuming the worst possible intentions. And, yes, sometimes perhaps that's deserved. Companies act badly and no one should give them the benefit of the doubt if they can't show reasons it ought not to be. But sometimes, it just gets ridiculous, as is clear in a recent ProPublica piece that attacked WhatsApp for its "report" feature. Now, I like ProPublica a lot and feel that they do some of the best investigative reporting around. But this was not that.

ProPublica itself has reported on how WhatsApp can be abused by those with nefarious intent -- criticizing the company for failing to do anything about it. But this new article is basically the opposite. It's attacking WhatsApp because it has a feature that allows users to "report" a message they received to WhatsApp. ProPublica dangerously incorrectly used this to claim that WhatsApp (which offers end-to-end encryption) is somehow bad about privacy. The title of the article reads -- incorrectly -- "How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users." The (since edited) article contains this bullshit section:

Zuckerberg’s vision centered on WhatsApp’s signature feature, which he said the company was planning to apply to Instagram and Facebook Messenger: end-to-end encryption, which converts all messages into an unreadable format that is only unlocked when they reach their intended destinations. WhatsApp messages are so secure, he said, that nobody else — not even the company — can read a word. As Zuckerberg had put it earlier, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2018, “We don’t see any of the content in WhatsApp.”

WhatsApp emphasizes this point so consistently that a flag with a similar assurance automatically appears on-screen before users send messages: “No one outside of this chat, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them.”

Those assurances are not true. WhatsApp has more than 1,000 contract workers filling floors of office buildings in Austin, Texas, Dublin and Singapore, where they examine millions of pieces of users' content. Seated at computers in pods organized by work assignments, these hourly workers use special Facebook software to sift through millions of private messages, images and videos. They pass judgment on whatever flashes on their screen — claims of everything from fraud or spam to child porn and potential terrorist plotting — typically in less than a minute.

The false implication here is that WhatsApp (and Facebook) are lying about end-to-end encryption. Except, that's bullshit. The people reviewing content are only reviewing content that has been reported. I don't understand why this is hard for people to comprehend, but even with end-to-end encryption one of those "ends" can forward the contents to someone else, and those people can see it. And that's all that's happening here. When you "report" content in Facebook, it is the functional equivalent of forwarding the message.

If it's "undermining" privacy (and it's not), then the person who is reporting the content is the one undermining privacy by forwarding the message and saying it might be problematic. This is actually quite a reasonable approach to dealing with questionable content on an encrypted messaging program, but ProPublica decides to spread a very misleading report suggesting that it's undermining privacy.

Alec Muffett does a nice job dismantling the argument. As he notes, it's really bad when journalists try to redefine end-to-end encryption to mean something it is not. It does not mean that recipients of messages cannot forward them or cannot share them. And, in fact, pretending that's true, or insisting that forwarding messages and reporting them is somehow an attack on privacy is dangerous. It actually undermines encryption by setting up false and dangerous expectations about what it actually entails.

Alex Stamos similarly has a great thread on the many problems in the article, but here's the key bit:

But, really, this gets back to a larger point that I keep trying to make with regards to reporting on "privacy" violations. People differ (greatly!) on what they think a privacy violation really entails, and because of that, we get very silly demands -- often from the media and politicians -- about "protecting privacy" when many of those demands would do tremendous harm to other important ideas -- such as harming competition or harming free speech.

And this is especially troubling when perfectly reasonable (and in fact, quite good) systems like WhatsApp "report" feature are portrayed incorrectly as "undermining privacy" when what it's actually trying to do is help deal with the other issue that the media keeps attacking WhatsApp for: enabling people to abuse these tools to spread hatred, disinformation, or other dangerous content.

Filed Under: bad journalism, bad reporting, encryption, end to end encryption, forwarding, privacy, reporting
Companies: facebook, propublica, whatsapp

AT&T Whines About Spectrum Hoarding Now That T-Mobile Is Doing It

from the do-as-I-say dept

Economists predicted the T-Mobile merger would result in a lot of layoffs, something that's been proven true so far. Those same economists also predicted that the merger will also inevitably result in higher prices for consumers, though that's expected to take a few years as investors pressure the three remaining companies to take advantage of reduced competition.

One good thing about the merger for T-Mobile and its subscribers is that it did provide T-Mobile with a whole lot of spectrum, allowing the company to dramatically boost overall network capacity. That has quickly resulted in T-Mobile customers seeing some significant speed increases across the T-Mobile network.

But global telecom consolidation history (see Ireland, Canada, and large chunks of Europe) suggests we're still in the "trying to justify mindless consolidation" of the program, and not yet to the "let's now exploit the reduction in total competitors by easing off price competition and promotions" part of the program. But the price hikes will come. It's like the physics of river water filling every available crack. If there's a reduction in competition to exploit, Wall Street demands it be exploited, sooner or later. Market health or consumer welfare don't enter into the equation for a fleeting second.

As T-Mobile has grown fatter and more powerful, it's increasingly been criticized for acting much like the wireless competitors it once made fun of as establishment bullies. T-Mobile's massive trove of spectrum has gotten so fat it's now alarming AT&T, a company with a multi-decade history of squatting on spectrum to limit competitors, and exploiting government auctions generally designed to give preference to the biggest, wealthiest competitors. Now that somebody is doing something AT&T used to be able to do without consequence, it's amusingly and suddenly a problem:

"In a blog post Wednesday, AT&T EVP of Federal Regulatory Relations Joan Marsh explained that spectrum screens don’t limit how much spectrum a company can hold, but do provide a way to help the FCC identify spectrum purchases that could hurt competition."

Hey guys...AT&T is worried about wireless competition!

AT&T's policy blog is always a great source of entertaining hypocrisy, and almost always involves AT&T complaining about something it has done for years. In the case of spectrum, people have been calling for "use it or lose it" requirements for literally decades as a way to prevent dominant carriers from hoarding spectrum they don't really use, thereby boxing competitors out of the market. The U.S. government has traditionally ignored those requests, as made evident by Dish's ongoing hoarding of massive troves of wireless spectrum that somehow, mysteriously, never quite ends up with a working wireless network.

There are FCC "spectrum screens" for low and high band spectrum designed to limit how much spectrum a company can hold in a given geographical region, but as you can tell from a heavily consolidated wireless industry they've never been all that effective or consistently enforced. For years AT&T was a primary beneficiary of this dysfunction, but now that T-Mobile is doing it, it's suddenly bad:

"Specifically, AT&T wants the regulator to adopt a mid-band screen for all future spectrum acquisitions between 2.5 GHz and 6 GHz – although notably not any spectrum obtained at Auction 110 (the next U.S. mid-band auction, with spectrum between 3.45-3.55 GHz) because rules were already finalized. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Dish have all applied to participate."

In short T-Mobile already holds a lot of valuable middle band spectrum, so AT&T wants a middle band spectrum screen to ensure competitors aren't boxed out. And it's not a particularly bad idea. But it's still hard to not appreciate the irony of AT&T only appreciating the value of competent regulatory oversight and competition policy now that the shoe is on the other foot. Or the fact AT&T just spent five years lobbying relentlessly to ensure the FCC was as toothless as possible. AT&T's fine with the "free market" magically sorting everything out until suddenly it is the one that requires a more level, regulatory mandated playing field.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, spectrum hoarding
Companies: at&t

Sci-Hub Celebrates 10 Years Of Existence, With A Record 88 Million Papers Available, And A Call For Funds To Help It Add AI And Go Open Source

from the paypal-not-accepted dept

To celebrate ten years offering a large proportion of the world's academic papers for free -- against all the odds, and in the face of repeated legal action -- Sci-Hub has launched a funding drive:

Sci-Hub is run fully on donations. Instead of charging for access to information, it creates a common pool of knowledge free for anyone to access.

The donations page says that "In the next few years Sci-Hub is going to dramatically improve", and lists a number of planned developments. These include a better search engine, a mobile app, and the use of neural networks to extract ideas from papers and make inferences and new hypotheses. Perhaps the most interesting idea is for the software behind Sci-Hub to become open source. The move would address in part a problem discussed by Techdirt back in May: the fact that Sci-Hub is a centralized service, with a single point of failure. Open sourcing the code -- and sharing the papers database -- would allow multiple mirrors to be set up around the world by different groups, increasing its resilience.

Donations can only be made in cryptocurrencies -- Sci-Hub accepts most of the main ones. A short interview with Sci-Hub's founder, Alexandra Elbakyan, on the donations page explains why she moved away from PayPal:

in the past I used also PayPal account to collect donations from abroad. It worked well for a while, but when I posted a message on Sci-Hub urging people to donate, if my memory is correct it was in 2013, donations started to come at a cosmic speed... in a couple of days two or three thousands of dollars were collected. But then the account was frozen by PayPal. It turned out that Elsevier has complained to PayPal about Sci-Hub so they froze the account.

Later I tried registering another PayPal account, and use it carefully, but after some time it also got frozen. I have several frozen PayPal accounts by now.

The main Sci-Hub site claims to hold some 87,977,763 papers -- an impressive number. It's a reminder of just how much research has been funded by the public, and how much could be available for researchers across the globe to access if unjustified claims of ownership were not made by academic publishers desperate to preserve their 35-40% profit margins.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Filed Under: academic knowledge, academic publishing, access to knowledge, decentralized, fundraising
Companies: sci-hub

China's New Youth Online Gaming Restrictions Birth Underground Workaround Industry To Defeat It

from the oops dept

It will not be controversial to say that China has always been one of the leaders in the war on the internet and culture alike. Between the Great Firewall of China at the macro level, the almost hilariously Orwellian tactics like forbidding certain karaoke songs, and the full destruction of democracy in Hong Kong, it's clear that Beijing values control over everything else.

But control isn't always so easy to implement. Take China's restrictive new regulation on online gaming among youths, for instance. These rules, implemented in order to combat "video game addiction" for minors, limit online gaming Friday through Sunday and on national holidays to 1 hour a day, 8pm to 9pm. This is achieved by forcing the gaming companies to implement a "real name" account policy. Gamers have to create an account utilizing their real names, which are checked for user age, in order to get into the online games.

Well, you probably already know where this is going. The new rule has given rise to an underground industry for renting gaming accounts that are registered to adults. Adults can also just let their children use their accounts, also defeating the check. In other words, this has all become somewhat pointless.

‘Complying with the new rule isn’t technically difficult because it’s just a matter of writing new [Software Development Kit] codes,’ Zhu told Kotaku. ‘[SDKs are] integrated as part of the login process. What happens is that when new players log in, they are asked to enter their ID number which then verifies their age. Every gamer needs to log in with their real names…[and] every [domestic] game that legally operates in China is required to have that function.’

According to Niko Partners’ [Daniel] Ahmad, parents aren’t barred from giving their unrestricted adult accounts to their children, and there’s a large gray market for adult gaming accounts. If an underage player wanted to, they could circumvent the new restrictions

And they are! Nobody can say for sure how much of this is occurring, but if the lawsuits are flying about you can bet that it is some significant number. And, considering that one of the methods for defeating the restriction is for parents to simply let their kids use parental accounts, this all seems really silly. After all, it should be obvious that the main thrust for China putting these rules in place is some version of Beijing wanting to parent children, only to have those rules defeated by parents and children.

So, does China admit defeat and rescind or rework the new rules? Of course not!

This summer, Tencent rolled out a time-sensitive facial recognition system for sixty games, including Honor of Kings. Dubbed “Midnight Patrol,” it aims to prevent tricksy youngsters from posing as grown-ups between 10pm and 8am. “We will conduct a face screening for accounts registered with real names and that have played for a certain period of time at night,” Tencent Games said at the time (via Sixth Tone). “Anyone who refuses or fails the face verification will be treated as a minor, and as outlined in the anti-addiction supervision of Tencent’s game health system, and kicked offline.”

And you can bet that the facial recognition piece of this will be defeated, too. That is how this sort of thing tends to go, after all. This is something akin to the famous John Gilmore quote that the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.

Game on, Chinese youth!

Filed Under: china, restrictions, video games, workaround