Reverse Warrants Show Feds Sought Data On Thousands Of Police Brutality Protesters In Kenosha, Wisconsin

from the it's-ok!-the-NSA-said-this-was-cool-and-legal! dept

Is there anything law enforcement won't use geofence warrants for? The answer appears to be "no."

A recent Google transparency report shows exponential growth in the geofence (a.k.a. "reverse") warrant market, one that Google has inadvertently cornered by collecting more GPS info than any of its competitors. These aren't traditional warrants. Traditional warrants use probable cause to justify searches of places, people, and objects (like vehicles).

"Reverse" warrants are just that: a dragnet cast by cops to find a suspect in a pool of possibilities, most of whom are not criminals. Working backwards from a long list of GPS data points and cellphone information, investigators try to find the most likely suspect and then move forward again, this time using some actual probable cause. They're not always correct. And they seem largely unconcerned that demanding location data on hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people perverts the process.

A recent report by Russell Brandom for The Verge shows the trend towards bulk collection continues. And, as reported previously, it involves federal agents who want to convert state charges to federal charges (using imaginative readings of the phrase "interstate commerce" to do so) to generate as much pain as possible for people who participated in protests against police violence, whether lawfully or not.

Protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the shooting of a black man by police quickly turned violent. Not only were businesses burned and destroyed, a 17-year-old interloper named Kyle Rittenhouse convinced his mom to drive him to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Illinois. Once there, the armed Rittenhouse engaged in his vigilante fantasies, shooting three protesters, killing two of them.

The ATF was more interested in the arson, though. And it thought the best way to generate investigative leads was to gather information on thousands of protesters, almost every one of which did not start any fires.

A series of six newly unsealed warrants (1 2 3 4 5 6), some previously reported by Forbes, show a persistent effort to use Google’s location services to identify Android users in the vicinity of arson incidents.

Issued in quick succession on September 3rd, the warrants came from a team of 50 arson investigators from the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, deployed to Kenosha to prosecute property damage cases connected to the protests. Using the warrants, The agents targeted seven different geographical zones, asking to identify anyone located within that area during a span that could stretch as long as two hours. The result was a kind of location dragnet, spread over some of the busiest times and locations in the first days of the protest.

The government wants haystacks. It firmly believes it can find needles. And it thinks it can do that often enough and with enough certainty no innocent hay will be treated like a criminal needle. That's insanely arrogant. The more data points you have, the more chances you have of picking the wrong one.

But maybe it really doesn't matter in these cases. After all, the DOJ and its components have proven more than happy to inflict collateral damage on protesters unhappy with the current state of law enforcement. If this ends in a few bogus arrests, does it really matter?

It might matter to the courts. A few judges have blocked these warrants, calling them vague and unconstitutional. And courts might be receptive to the arguments of those wrongfully arrested as a result of the use of these "reverse" warrants. The only probable cause the government has when it issues a geofence warrant is that it's likely Google houses the information it wants to collect. But it needs more than that. If all the government needed was the solid assumption a non-party/non-suspect possessed information it wanted, warrants could be completely unmoored from criminal investigations and used to grab any information the government has an interest in.

Those are legitimate concerns. Unfortunately, law enforcement doesn't share these concerns.

[One] warrant looks at a suspected arson of the Kenosha Public Library, based on lighter fluid and rags that were discovered in a northeast window well alongside minimal fire damage. Without direct witnesses to the fire, police set a two-hour window and a geofence covering the middle third of the downtown’s largest public park space. It was a significant span of time on the busiest night of the protest in an area that provided a natural meeting place for anyone who had taken to the streets that night.

I guess the ATF sees no harm in potentially rounding up several innocent protesters and subjecting them to facetime with federal agents -- federal agents who, by the way, can ring people up on charges simply for lying to them. The only thing standing between these warrants and some pretty ugly -- but inevitable -- outcomes is the courts. Google can anonymize information as much as possible, but follow-up demands are predicated solely on investigators' beliefs that they've found criminal suspects. How accurate those hunches are won't be discovered until they're in possession of identifying info -- info that can be traced back to the original dragnet supported by nothing more than the assumption grabbing all this data will allow investigators to continue their investigations.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, atf, geofence warrants, kenosha, police, protests, reverse warrants, surveillance, wisconsin

AT&T's 911, Cellular Networks Face Plant In Wake Of Hurricane Ida

from the oh-look,-this-again dept

After Hurricane Katrina, in 2008 the FCC passed rules mandating that cellular towers be upgraded to include battery backups or generators capable of delivering at least 8 hours of backup power, basically the bare minimum for usefulness. But the US cellular industry, you know, the one whose rates are some of the highest in the developed world, cried like a petulant child about the requirement and sued to successfully scuttle the rules.

Backed by the then Bush White House, cellular carriers insisted that the requirement would create "a huge economic and bureaucratic burden" for the industry. A better approach, it proclaimed, would be to let the industry self-regulate and adhere to entirely voluntary guidelines, leaving it with the "flexibility" to adapt to problems as the industry saw fit. The U.S. government did what the industry asked because, well, that's what U.S. telecom policy basically is now. And despite the fact this kind of industry ass kissing never works out particularly well, the country simply refuses to learn much of anything from the experience.

U.S. telecom policy failure has been apparent everywhere, most notably in telecom competition, reliability, customer service, and pricing. But it's also abundantly obvious when it comes to disaster policy.

There have now been repeated examples where the industry's failure to weather proof their infrastructure -- and provide reliable backup power at cell tower sites -- added insult to injury. Most notable among them was Hurricane Sandy in 2012, hurricanes Irma and Maria (which absolutely devastated Puerto Rico) in 2017, and the historic California wildfires of 2019. In every instance essential cellular service failed because many penny pinching companies weren't willing to spend the necessary money to harden their networks in the face of climate change, and regulators didn't genuinely hold them accountable.

Fast forward to this week, and the same story played out once again. About 40% of AT&T's wireless network simply didn't work in the wake of Hurricane Ida (unsurprisingly due to lack of backup power at many cell sites), leaving disaster victims unable to contact loved ones. Telecom policy experts keep pointing out that this is preventable, and that letting spending-averse telecom giants dictate U.S. policy on this subject isn't wise:

"Nobody likes to pay for emergency preparedness,” Harold Feld, a wireless policy expert and lawyer at consumer group Public Knowledge told Motherboard at the time. “That's why you need rules to force companies to spend the money. Companies will spend as little as they think they have to, which is why regulators need to tell them how much they have to spend.”

AT&T also provides much of Louisiana's 911 infrastructure, and that failed too, leaving many locals unable to call 911 services. AT&T's "antiquated technology" was blamed for the failures, which forced some local first responders to take to Facebook to urge locals to try and contact them directly (assuming their phones worked at all):

"The dispatch center’s new way of receiving 911 calls wasn’t ready. The district had signed a contract with AT&T for its ESInet online call-routing system last fall. But work on putting it in place is still months away. AT&T also holds the contract for delivering emergency calls to the 911 center over landlines and through conventional switching stations. That old technology — vulnerable to flooding and power outages — failed.

“The calls never got to the building,” Morris said.

Police and fire officials were still able to talk with dispatchers and each other — their old radio transmissions were not affected.

AT&T is the same company that just spent four years getting a Trump administration back rub, whether it was the $42 billion tax cut the company got for doing absolutely nothing, or the decision to lobotomize both state and federal telecom oversight because AT&T thought that might be a good idea. AT&T's now tethered to both our intelligence gathering apparatus and our first responder emergency network. Effectively a part of government, this lets AT&T get away with an awful lot of grift and bullshit, routinely obtaining billions in taxpayer dollars for products (be it reliable cellular networks, 911 infrastructure, or fiber upgrades) that wind up routinely half delivered.

It's not clear how many disasters we have to live through before we realize that it's probably not a good idea to let telecom giants with a long history of penny pinching and fraud dictate US government telecom policy. Especially, apparently, disaster policy.

Filed Under: battery backup, fcc, hurricane ida, louisiana
Companies: at&t

Make It A Trend: More Modders Get Hired By Developers, This Time CD Projekt Red

from the mod-squad dept

You will recall that we were just discussing a cool little story about Bethesda going so far in embracing the modding communities surrounding its games that it ended up hiring one of the writers of an impressive Fallout 4 mod onto its team. Part of what made that story interesting was not how totally novel it was. After all, modders have found their way into developer roles in the past. Instead, it's that it was Bethesda that made it interesting, being a AAA title developer and the fact that the gaming industry certainly doesn't approach modding communities with unanimity.

But it would be great for this to become a trend, as a demonstration of the boon that modding communities can be for developers, rather than some kind of a threat to their control. It's probably too early to call this a full on trend at this point, but it is worth highlighting that we have yet another story of a AAA developer hiring on members of a modding community, this time with CD Projekt Red.

Since it was released last December, Cyberpunk 2077 has received intermittent mod support from the developer, resources like metadata and TweakDB file dumps. But the most helpful tools have come from the community.

The modders who will officially join CDPR are Traderain, Nightmarea, Blumster, and rfuzzo. They are best known as the folks behind WolvenKit, an open-source tool that allows modders to modify CD Projekt Red’s greatest hits, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt In terms of Cyberpunk modding resources, WolvenKit is the gold standard, allowing you to edit any file in the game and, crucially, browse those files “without unpacking the archives.”

“We will be working on various projects related to the Cyberpunk 2077 backend and the game’s modding support,” Traderain wrote in an announcement on Cyberpunk 2077’s modding community Discord (via Reddit). “We are really excited for this and we really hope we can help to bring Cyberpunk 2077 to the next level!”

This specific move by CDPR is somewhat meta, with the modders hired not only to help with Cyberpunk's seemingly ongoing development via patches and mods, but also specifically to bridge the gap to other modding communities to make better use of their work.

Now, we're not a gaming site, so we didn't cover most aspects of CDPR's long-awaited release of Cyberpunk 2077, but the Cliff's Notes version is simply: it was an absolute shit show. The game, as released, was buggy as all hell, had console versions that didn't work or display as advertised, and there were even lawsuits from investors as a result of a crazy amount of refund requests granted by CDPR. It... wasn't great. And, frankly, there is no real excuse for the release of what is essentially an unfinished game.

But between active patching of the game and, more important for this post, an active modding ecosystem, the game has come a long way. Were CDPR to embrace a fight or flight mode of thinking, it would have been really easy for it to see these modding communities as either a threat to control over a broken product, or a point of embarrassment as the public was now fixing its game.

Instead, the developer did the smarter thing and embraced and eventually hired some of these modders. And now it's going to take this embrace of modders even further.

“We are working with Yigsoft on the development of Cyberpunk 2077 modding tools. The modding community has always been very important to us and we are happy to be working with them side by side on further expanding the tools which are available to modders,” a representative for CD Projekt Red told Kotaku in a statement.

Which will allow CDPR to continue to reap the benefits of its biggest fans, those so passionate about the game that they want to not just play it, but play within it. As a bargain in which the developer only had to give up a bit of control over its property, that's a damned good deal.

Filed Under: cyberpunk 2077, developers, modders, mods, video games
Companies: cd projekt red, cdpr

Facebook Promises To Distinguish Takedowns From Governments; Whether They're For Illegal Content, Or Merely Site Rules Violations

from the that's-a-start dept

There's an interesting discussion that happens in content moderation circles with regards to government requests for takedowns: are those requests about content that violates local laws or about the content violating website policies? Many people lump these two things together, but they're actually pretty different in practice. Obviously, if a government comes across content that violates the law, it seems reasonable for them to alert the platform to it and expect that the content will be removed (though, there may be some questions about jurisdiction and such). However, when it's just content that may violate site policy, there are some pretty big questions raised. This actually gets to the "jawboning" question we've been discussing a lot lately, and exploring where the line is between a politician persuading a website to take something down and compelling them to do so.

There is one argument that suggests that a government pointing out content that might violate site policies is simply helping out. The website doesn't want content that violates its standards, and the government reporting it is just like any other user reporting it (though, backed up by whatever credibility the government may or may not have). But, the flip side of that is, if the content is perfectly legal, this often starts to feel like a loophole through which government actors can engage in wink-wink-nudge-nudge censorship -- just send a notification to the site that this particular content may not break the law, but hey, doesn't it violate your policies?

A recent decision by the Oversight Board, and a corresponding statement from Facebook, suggests that Facebook is going to be clearer about when this situation happens. The case the Oversight Board reviewed was an interesting one. Here's how it summarized the situation:

In January 2021, an Instagram user in the United States posted a picture of Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The picture included the words “y’all ready for this conversation.” Underneath the picture the user wrote that it was time to talk about ending Öcalan’s isolation in prison on Imrali Island. They encouraged readers to engage in conversation about his imprisonment and the inhumane nature of solitary confinement.

Facebook removed the content for violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines after the post was automatically flagged for review (at this stage, the Board does not know if the content was removed by an automated system or through human review). These Guidelines under the heading “follow the law,” set out that “Instagram is not a place to support or praise terrorism, organized crime, or hate groups.” The Guidelines link to Facebook’s Community Standard on Dangerous Individuals and Organizations. These rules clarify that Facebook also prohibits any support or praise for groups, leaders, or individuals involved in terrorist activity or other serious crimes committed by these groups. The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by multiple countries, including Turkey, the United States, and the EU.

The user states in their appeal that Öcalan has been a political prisoner for decades and that banning any reference to him prevents discussions that could advance the position of the Kurdish people. They argue that Öcalan’s philosophy is peaceful and that his writings are widely available in bookshops and online. The user compares Öcalan’s imprisonment to that of former South African President Nelson Mandela, noting that discussion of Öcalan’s imprisonment should be allowed and encouraged.

In July, the Oversight Board overturned Facebook's initial decision (even though once the case was taken Facebook admitted it had taken down the content in error before the Oversight Board even ruled). A key part of the discussion was that Facebook claimed it had "misplaced" an "internal policy exception" for the "Dangerous Individuals and Organizations" policy, as that misplaced policy included an exception for the discussion of human rights issues, even among those designated as "dangerous." As with many other Oversight Board rulings, there were a bunch of other recommendations as well.

In early August, Facebook responded to the recommendations, and, as Evelyn Douek noted, buried deep within them (recommendation 11) was an admission that Facebook would start revealing information and data on requests from governments based on "Community Standards" violations, rather than legal violations. Here's what the Oversight Board asked for:

Include information on the number of requests Facebook receives for content removals from governments that are based on Community Standards violations (as opposed to violations of national law), and the outcome of those requests.

While this may have been a minor part of this particular situation, it's important information that has previously not be available. And, as Douek also notes, human rights activists have been begging Facebook for this data for ages, with no luck. But the Oversight Board seems to have made it happen. Here's what Facebook had to say about it:

Our commitment: We are actively working to provide additional transparency when we remove content under our Community Standards following a formal report by a government, including the total number of requests we receive.

Considerations: As noted in our response to Recommendation 9 above, when we receive a formal government report about content that may violate local law, we first review it against our global Community Standards, just as we would review a report from any other source. If the content violates our Community Standards, we will remove it and count it in our Community Standards Enforcement Report. These reports are reviewed under a standardized process in the same way and against the same policies as reports from any other source. As a result, we are not currently able to report when we remove content based on a report by a government or from a Facebook user. In addition, we may receive reports of a piece of content that may violate our policies from multiple sources at the same time—for example, from a government and from user reports on Facebook. Such situations create additional challenges in determining whether content should be considered as removed in response to a government report.

We have been exploring ways to increase the level of transparency we provide to users and the public about requests we receive from governments, in line with best practices laid out by civil society efforts like the Santa Clara Principles and the Ranking Digital Rights project. We are prioritizing that work in response to this recommendation.

Next steps: We are planning work that will enable us to include information on content removed for violating our Community Standards following a formal report by a government, including the number of requests we receive, as a distinct category in our Transparency Center.

Again, as Douek points out, there is some wiggle room here in that Facebook committed to counting "formal" requests from government, which means that totally informal requests and suggestions -- pure "jawboning" situations -- might not be counted. But, still, this is a step forward in getting more transparency about how often governments push Facebook and Instagram to take down content that is legal, even if it may violate site policies.

Filed Under: community standards, content moderation, government requests, illegal content, jawboning, lawful but awful
Companies: facebook, oversight board

House Committee Investigating January 6th Capitol Invasion Goes On Social Media Fishing Expedition; Companies Should Resist

from the not-cool dept

Whatever you think of what happened on January 6th, people should be concerned about the House Select Committee that is investigating those events now demanding information from various social networks. As the committee announced in a press release, it was demanding records from a long list of social media companies.

The letters to the social media companies seek a range of records, including data, reports, analyses, and communications stretching back to spring of 2020. The Select Committee is also seeking information on policy changes social media companies adopted—or failed to adopt—to address the spread of false information, violent extremism, and foreign malign influence, including decisions on banning material from platforms and contacts with law enforcement and other government entities.

The following companies received record demands from the Select Committee:

• 4chan
• 8kun (formerly known as 8chan)
• Facebook
• Gab
• Google
• Parler
• Reddit
• Snapchat
• Telegram
• theDonald.win
• Tik-Tok
• Twitch
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Zello

Some of the information requested may be reasonable to ask for, but the requests are fairly sweeping. I've seen some argue that since the requests are so broad, it shows that they're not biased, but it's not bias I'm concerned about. The reports are demanding over a year's worth of details from each of these websites regarding things like:

All accounts, users, groups, events, messaging forums, marketplaces, posts, or other user-generated content that was sanctioned, suspended, removed, throttled, deprioritized, labeled, suppressed, or banned from your platform(s) related to any of the items detailed in request 1(i)-(iv) above.

The (i)-(iv) discussed are the following:

i. Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation relating to the 2020 election;
ii. Efforts to overturn, challenge, or otherwise interfere with the 2020 election or the certification of electoral college results;
iii. Domestic violent extremists, including racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, militia violent extremists, sovereign citizen violent extremists, QAnon, or other extremists associated with efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including the January 6, 2021, attack, attacks against other State capitols, and attempted attacks against the January 20, 2021 inauguration of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; and
iv. Foreign malign influence in the 2020 election, including known or suspected coordination between foreign and/or domestic influences to interfere in the 2020 elections, or cause domestic unrest.

Forcing every company to turn over such information seems like a very, very slippery slope towards the government turning that information back around and threatening or intimidating companies over their very much 1st Amendment protected moderation decisions.

There are also things like this -- which it's not clear the government should have access to:

Internal communications, reports, documents, or other materials relating to internal employee concerns about content on the platform associated with any of the items detailed in request 1(i)-(iv) above.

Those kinds of internal deliberations are not particularly relevant to what happened on January 6th -- which the committee is supposedly investigating. It seems a lot more relevant to pressuring social media companies to moderate in a government approved manner. I understand that the Committee is likely investigating whether or not some of those providers eagerly supported those who invaded the Capitol, but this is not a narrowly targeted request, and the potential intimidation factor is high.

Filed Under: capitol hill, fishing expedition, house select committee, insurrection, january 6, policies, social media

Man Who Was Ejected From The United States After Appearing In A Film Critical Of ICE Asks Court To Roll Back Removal

from the ICE,-however,-is-still-the-'worst-of-the-worst' dept

Under president Donald Trump, ICE went from barely tolerable to fascist stormtroopery, doing anything in its power to kick people out of the country. Trump claimed he was just trying to make the nation safer by ridding us of the "worst of the worst." His vague directives lit a fire under the worst ICE employees, giving them free rein to forcibly eject as many people as possible, even if those people were not the "worst," nor even trending towards that direction.

ICE struggled to find (figuratively [but also maybe literally?]) boatloads of hardened criminals to send packing, so it decided quantity was preferable to quality. To cite just one example of ICE's enthusiasm for ejecting even the best and brightest (along with everyone else), the agency set up and ran a fake college solely for the purpose of booting people trying to do nothing more than continue their education and satisfy the requirements of their student visas.

A court case currently being reviewed by the Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court appears to show ICE engaging in retaliation against protected speech in order to remove (check reports) a man who has lived in this country illegally, but definitely gainfully, for nearly two decades. Joel Rose has this report for NPR:

Activist Claudio Rojas says he was deported to his homeland, Argentina, for appearing in a film that criticized U.S. immigration authorities.

Rojas is one of the stars of The Infiltrators. He was invited to introduce the movie at the Miami Film Festival in 2019. Instead, Rojas was detained at a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.

A few weeks later, he was deported.

Here's a description of the film -- one based partially on fact -- via the Sundance Institute. The film took home two Sundance Film Festival awards at the 2019 ceremony.

Without warning, Claudio Rojas is detained by ICE officials outside his Florida home. He is transferred to the Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility used as a holding space for imminent deportations. Terrified of never seeing him again, Claudio’s family contacts the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), a group of activist Dreamers known for stopping deportations. Believing that no one is free as long as one is in detention, NIYA enlists Marco Saavedra to self-deport with the hopes of gaining access to the detention center and impeding Claudio’s expulsion. Once inside, Marco discovers a complex for-profit institution housing hundreds of multinational immigrants, all imprisoned without trial.

In real life -- like in the film -- Rojas was released and headed back to his family. He was one of the lucky ones. The for-profit detention facility (along with its ICE overseers) did everything it could to keep detainees away from their legal representation prior to their almost inevitable expulsion from the country.

Rojas' appearance in this film appears to have provoked ICE into removing him from the United States, sending him far away from the family he raised here. Need a second opinion on the optics of this ICE maneuver? Here's the opening of Matt Fagerholm's review of the film for Roger Ebert's site.

A month after Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera’s “The Infiltrators” garnered two prizes at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, one of its subjects, immigrant rights activist Claudio Rojas, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during what was supposed to be a routine appointment. His subsequent deportation to Argentina, severing him from his family in the states, appears to have been a clear retaliation for Rojas’ attempts chronicled in this documentary to undermine Florida’s Broward Transitional Center, a for-profit institution that specializes in detaining immigrants without a trial or court-appointed lawyer.

Rojas challenged his removal, citing its retaliatory aspects. The district court refused to consider his request, considering everything about it moot because ICE had already sent him back to Argentina. Since he was here illegally, the court said ICE had the legal justification to kick him out, even though it had never pulled the trigger on this option until after he appeared in a film critical of ICE and its detention facilities.

What he's heard from one of three-judge panel handling his case is promising.

[T]he Supreme Court's ruling in the AADC case left the door open for a future deportation case that is so "outrageous," as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, that it would cross the line.

And appeals court Judge Robin Rosenbaum asked during the hearing whether the Rojas case fits that description.

"There's possibly an outrageous First Amendment scenario where it could be a problem," Rosenbaum said. "It seems to me the situation couldn't be much more outrageous than what we have here."

While challenging removals is less likely to end in a government loss than cases involving qualified immunity, there's still hope that this decision -- and ICE's apparently retaliatory actions -- will result in Rojas having his removal reversed.

But it's a very slim chance. That decision does indeed say courts may be able to find an "outrageous" scenario that they can exercise jurisdiction over.

To resolve the present controversy, we need not rule out the possibility of a rare case in which the alleged basis of discrimination is so outrageous that the foregoing considerations can be overcome.

However, the rest of the concluding paragraph says this:

Whether or not there be such exceptions, the general rule certainly applies here. When an alien’s continuing presence in this country is in violation of the immigration laws, the Government does not offend the Constitution by deporting him for the additional reason that it believes him to be a member of an organization that supports terrorist activity.

It's a long shot but it's worth taking. If nothing else, further courtroom examination of ICE's activities is likely to expose its selective enforcement of immigration laws -- something it did plenty of under Trump, targeting the easiest-to-remove persons rather than the "worst of the worst" one of our worst presidents claimed immigration officers would prioritize.

Filed Under: 11th circuit, 1st amendment, activism, claudio rojas, deportation, ice, immigration, retaliation

Daily Deal: xFyro Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds

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

The xFyro Active Noise Cancelling Pro Earbuds utilize active noise canceling not just to block out ambient noise but optimize your listening experience by calibrating it based on a 4-mic system that listens to your surroundings and music. The ANC Pro also features a conversation mode that allows you to selectively amplify conversations and alarms so you can stay alert while you're immersed in your music. It has 7mm graphene-powered drivers, 100-hour battery life, and custom engineered ergonomic fit. It's on sale for $40.

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.

China's New Internet Regulations, Building On Western Internet Regulations, Requires Algorithms To 'Vigorously Disseminate Positive Energy'

from the justifying-actual-suppression-of-ideas dept

When the UK announced its rebranded "Online Safety" bill (originally, the "Online Harms" bill) we noted that the mechanism included was effectively identical to the original Great Firewall of China. That is, when China first began censoring its internet, rather than telling websites explicitly what needed to be taken down, it just gave vague policy guidance about what "harmful" information would be a problem if it was found online, and backed that up with a serious threat: if any service provider was found not to have taken down information the government deemed problematic, it would face serious consequences. There was, of course, no such threat for taking down information that should not have been taken down. The end result was clear: when in doubt, take it down.

It remains preposterous to me that all across Western democracies, we've seen them taking the same basic approach -- insisting that platforms need to be much more aggressive in pulling down "bad" information (loosely defined), with significant liability attached to leaving it up (even if the content is legal), and little in the way of punishment for overblocking. And, over and over and over again studies have shown that when you set up a liability regime this way, you get massive overblocking. It seems that some countries see that as a feature, not a bug.

And, of course, with that approach now being picked up in other countries, China has apparently decided to ramp up its own approach. Under the guise of stopping "harmful" information online, China has released a draft of new regulations to punish internet companies that don't remove harmful information:

China kicked off a two-month campaign to crack down on commercial platforms and social media accounts that post finance-related information that’s deemed harmful to its economy.

The initiative will focus on rectifying violations including those that “maliciously” bad-mouth China’s financial markets and falsely interpret domestic policies and economic data, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement late Friday. Those who republish foreign media reports or commentaries that falsely interpret domestic financial topics “without taking a stance or making a judgment” will also be targeted, it added.

Part of this new effort is a set of draft regulations for "algorithmic recommendation" systems. Kendra Schaefer wrote out a detailed Twitter thread analyzing the proposal, and just how far reaching it is.

Among the new rules (as translated by by Stanford's DigiChina center) are some... um... interesting ones.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall uphold mainstream value orientations, optimize algorithmic recommendation service mechanisms, vigorously disseminate positive energy, and advance the use of algorithms upwards and in the direction of good.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers may not use algorithmic recommendation services to engage in activities harming national security, upsetting the economic order and social order, infringing the lawful rights and interests of other persons, and other such acts prohibited by laws and administrative regulations. They may not use algorithmic recommendation services to disseminate information prohibited by laws and administrative regulations.

It limits what kinds of keywords can be used. "Harmful" information cannot be used, nor "biased user tags" (whatever that means):

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall strengthen user model and user tagging management and perfect norms for logging interests in user models. They may not enter unlawful or harmful information as keywords into user interests or make them into user tags to use them as a basis for recommending information content, and may not set up discriminatory or biased user tags.

There are also rules against using algorithms to manipulate systems -- but also to "shield information," which seems to contradict the requirements to block lots of information.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers may not use algorithms to falsely register users, illegally trade accounts, or manipulate user accounts; or for false likes, comments, reshares, web page navigation, etc.; or to carry out flow falsification or flow hijack. They may not use algorithms to shield information, over-recommend, manipulate topic lists or search result rankings, or control hot search terms or selections and other such interventions in information presentation; or to carry out self-preferencing, improper competition, influence on online public opinion, or evasion of supervision and management.

That one about "influencing public opinion" sure is interesting. How do you avoid influencing public opinion?

Like many recent regulatory proposals in the US, Canada, the EU and elsewhere, China leans heavily on "transparency" when it comes to algorithms:

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall notify users in a clear manner about the situation of the algorithmic recommendation services they provide, and publicize the basic principles, purposes and motives, operational mechanisms, etc., of the algorithmic recommendation services in a suitable manner.

But, of course, viewing this in the Chinese context shows why such mandatory transparency has risks. In this case, China wants this transparency so it can further regulate what information people will see via algorithmic recommendations, and to intimidate/threaten companies not to spread information the government wants suppressed.

Again, similar to various internet regulations in the West, China has a nod towards end-user control and empowerment:

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall provide users with a choice to not target their individual characteristics, or provide users with a convenient option to switch off algorithmic recommendation services. Where users choose to switch off algorithmic recommendation services, the algorithmic recommendation service provider shall immediately cease providing related services.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall provide users with functions to choose, revise, or delete user tags used for algorithmic recommendation services.

Where users believe algorithmic recommendation service providers use algorithms in a manner creating a major influence on their rights and interests, they have the right to require the algorithmic recommendation service provider to give an explanation and adopt related measures to improve or remedy the situation.

But, again, when viewed in the Chinese context, you can easily see how this kind of mandate can be abused heavily.

There is also, a "think of the children" provision, because no internet regulations these days are complete without such a moral panic heart string pull:

Where algorithmic recommendation service providers provide services to minors, they shall fulfill duties for the online protection of minors according to the law, and make it convenient for minors to obtain information content beneficial to their physical and mental health, through developing models suited for use with minors, providing services suited to the specific characteristics of minors, etc.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers may not push information content toward minor users that may incite the minor to imitate unsafe conduct, or acts violating social morals, or lead the minor towards harmful tendencies or may influence minors’ physical and mental health in other ways; and they may not use algorithmic recommendation services to lead minors to online addiction

Also, there's a built in complaint mechanism.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall accept social supervision, set up convenient complaints and reporting interfaces, and promptly accept and handle complaints and reports from the public.

Algorithmic recommendation service providers shall establish user appeals channels and mechanisms, to standardize the handling of user appeals and the timely provision of feedback, and realistically ensure the lawful rights and interests of users.

Failing to abide by these rules will get the companies fined (relatively small amounts -- about $1k to $5k -- at first). However, it also opens them up to significant criminal liability as well.

As Schaefer notes, this is China "going beyond" the internet regulations in the EU. But, what's left unsaid is that some of this is enabled by just how far the EU and others have gone in trying to get the internet to paper over the societal problems created by government failures in other realms.

It should be leading us to wonder why it is that China is so eager to embrace and extend this approach to internet regulations, rather than as an endorsement of such an approach.

Filed Under: algorithms, china, intermediary liability, internet regulations, online harms, online safety

Apple's Dedication To Privacy Is Missing When It Comes To Its Workforce, Employees Say

from the consistently-inconsistent dept

For a while it's been clear that Apple has been hoping to use "we care about privacy" as a marketing advantage in an internet economy that consistently... doesn't. For example Apple has stood up to the FBI when it comes to backdooring encryption. And in 2020 Apple unveiled several new privacy features and policies it hoped would differentiate it from its other "big tech" contemporaries repeatedly under fire in the press and in Congress. Granted there's been ongoing hints this dedication isn't exactly consistent, but it's the thought that counts, I guess.

But Apple employees say the company's outward-facing dedication to privacy isn't reflected in house. This week The Verge reported on how the company's decision to force Apple employees to link their personal Apple ID and work Apple accounts are creating significant privacy headaches for employees. Personal Apple ID accounts are obviously filled with all manner of sensitive personal and financial data that an employee might not want shared with an employer. And the requirement that employees fuse their personal and work lives in such a fashion is causing significant internal turmoil, the report claims:

"...some employees say the company isn’t doing enough to protect their personal privacy and, at times, actively seeks to invade it for security reasons. Employees have been asked to install software builds on their phones to test out new features prior to launch — only to find the builds expose their personal messages. Others have found that when testing new products like Apple’s Face ID, images are recorded every time they open their phones. “If they did this to a customer, people would lose their goddamn minds,” says Ashley Gjøvik, a senior engineering program manager."

Apple devices don’t support using multiple Apple IDs, and while you can technically use several phones (say, an Android), that winds up being cumbersome and difficult if you want to actually get work done. The forced integration is just a bizarre disconnect from the company's recent pro-privacy branding. Especially given the requirements have had a stunning privacy impact on the very people Apple expects to build privacy-friendly products and services:

So in short Apple is demanding that employees fuse extremely personal accounts with oceans of sensitive data with their work accounts. While at the same time conducting significant internal surveillance, and making it extremely clear employees should have absolutely no expectation of privacy (very much the status quo at most companies):

"Underpinning all of this is a stringent employment agreement that gives Apple the right to conduct extensive employee surveillance, including “physical, video, or electronic surveillance” as well as the ability to “search your workspace such as file cabinets, desks, and offices (even if locked), review phone records, or search any non-Apple property (such as backpacks, purses) on company premises."

The story makes it very clear Apple hasn't tried very hard to make any of this any easier. Untangling your personal and work data when you leave Apple also winds up being a nightmare, given that Apple bans employees from wiping their company-owned devices (including the personal data that gets tangled up with work) when they leave the company, opening them to legal action for violating their employment agreement if they do.

So in short Apple's marketing insists that when it comes to privacy the company is ethical and different, but when it comes to the people actually tasked with building the products that adhere to those standards -- these values suddenly and mysteriously disappear.

Filed Under: apple id, employment, privacy, work life balance, work phone
Companies: apple