'Historic' FCC Robocall Fine For Burkman, Wohl Could Prove Hollow

from the mostly-decorative dept

We've noted for years that the FCC's purported "war on robocalls" has been predominantly empty. Just a few years ago, for example, the FCC patted itself on the back for some minor rule changes that simply let wireless carriers offer robocall blocking tech by default. And quite often, the "record" fines the FCC announces to punish robocallers are never actually collected. Making matters worse, the US government usually only targets smaller scam robocallers, and not any of the major "legit" industries (like debt collectors) that utilize the same tactics as robocall scammers to harass struggling Americans they know can't pay anyway.

You can see how effective the FCC's "war on robocalls" has been by the amount of robocalls you've received. Though it ebbs and flows, the problem has grown massively since 2015, and the Robocall Index notes that 30.7 billion robocalls have been placed in 2021 so far, up from last year. That's just the United States. This is not a war anybody could confidently claim we're winning.

This week, the FCC made headlines again for announcing a "record" fine against partisan bullshit artists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for making 1,141 robocalls to cellphones during the 2020 elections without gaining consumer consent. The fines come after the duo were charged with four felonies in Michigan for making misleading robocalls to area minority voters. From the FCC's press release:

"The robocalls in this case, made on August 26 and September 14, 2020, used messages telling potential voters that, if they vote by mail, their “personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts." The Commission began its investigation following consumer complaints and concerns raised by a non-profit organization.

The FCC focused on only a thousand or so calls they could clearly prove violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which requires opt-in consumer consent before bombarding them with robocalls.

But the broader effort (spelled out in the charging docs from the four felonies facing the duo in Michigan) allegedly involved posing as a "civil rights group", then robocalling more than 80,000 largely minority voters across several states in the lead up to the 2020 election to tell them that if they voted by mail, that data would be used by cops to enforce old warrants, exploited by debt collectors to collect outstanding debts, and used by government to mandate vaccination. Just sleazy, grotesquely racist stuff.

Granted the problem with the FCC and robocalls has traditionally been one of follow through:

"A 2019 Wall Street Journal investigation found that of the $208 million in robocall fines imposed by the FCC since 2015, the agency collected just $6,790. Similarly, of the $1.5 billion in robocall fines imposed by the FTC since 2004, the agency collected just $121 million.

That’s often because spoofing robocallers are hard to find, or have already gone bankrupt by the time any litigation ends and collectors finally arrive. But it’s also because telemarketers are often able to negotiate a lower penalty, or in the case of some telecom giants like AT&T, are consistently able to wiggle their way out of paying FCC fines entirely."

The other problem here is that this is just a proposed fine. Actually fining Wohl and Burkman requires a full commission vote to proceed. But because Biden still hasn't appointed a third Democratic Commissioner and permanent FCC boss seven months into his term, any such vote could be thwarted by the two existing Trump loyal commissioners, Simington and Carr. Until Biden gets around to appointing a permanent FCC boss, the agency has its hands tied in terms of doing anything even remotely controversial. Which, you know, makes telecom giants pretty happy.

None of that is to say Burkman and Wohl won't eventually face some meaningful FCC penalties once the agency is fully staffed (whenever that winds up being), just that anybody holding their breath on the scope and scale of the FCC accountability process probably... shouldn't do that.

Filed Under: fcc, fines, jack burkman, jacob wohl, robocalls

Academic: Problems Created By Undermining Section 230 Can Be Solved... By Undermining Section 230?

from the say-that-again? dept

I remain confused at why so many people endorse Macarthur Genius award winner, Prof. Danielle Citron's views on Section 230. Over and over again people say that her ideas for reforming Section 230 are sensible. Except that they are not. She has falsely insisted that companies have no incentives to moderate and that their incentives are to push the most extreme content. This has been debunked over and over again. If it were true, then every website would turn into 8kun. But that doesn't happen, because most websites realize that when your website is full of garbage people, it drives away other users (including those more likely to support you or your advertisers) and it drives away advertisers.

Citron's big idea is to put in place a duty of care or "reasonableness" standard, but we've explained at length why that's the kind of idea only an academic with no experience running a website could love. It would lead to a ton of costly litigation in which companies would have to repeatedly defend their moderation practices in court. At best this would lead to companies all adopting nearly identical moderation practices to whichever company survived the litigation gauntlet first -- effectively crushing any ability to experiment and innovate in the moderation market, and likely locking in Facebook as one of the few companies that can afford to handle moderation's liability risks.

All that said, I'm even more flabbergasted by Citron's initial response to the (now walked back) news that OnlyFans was planning to phase out sexually explicit content. Many, many people have made the connection between OnlyFans' decision and FOSTA, the last time Section 230 was amended to add more liability to platforms. Of course, as we've now seen, FOSTA has had a massive human cost, is leading to some wacky vexatious civil lawsuits, and according to the GAO's own study, has failed to live up to any of its promises.

In an article at CNN about the OnlyFans decision, Citron makes an absolutely bizarre claim, that the answer to OnlyFans deplatforming sex workers... is to put more liability on OnlyFans so that those sex workers can sue. I only wish I were kidding.

Just like social media companies, payment processors are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, Citron said. That's the signature law that grants broad legal immunity to Facebook and Twitter for many of the content-moderation decisions they make — and the law that SESTA-FOSTA amended to create an exception for sex ads.

Citron wants to see changes made to Section 230 that could expose platforms to more liability under certain circumstances. Perhaps, she said, those changes might even allow sex workers who feel their businesses have been harmed by payment processors to sue them for tortious interference.

"We're talking about OnlyFans, where we're seeing sex workers doing safe work. It's from their own homes, they're making content on their own terms," Citron said.

So... the answer to sex workers being kicked off platforms that fear that they might face liability under FOSTA hole in Section 230, is to open up another hole in Section 230 so that those sex workers can then sue OnlyFans for tortious interference?!? Um, what?

Even just bringing up tortious interference as a cause of action is bizarre. That's the same sort of argument that people like Laura Loomer have used to say people reporting her to Twitter engaged in "tortious interference" when Twitter kicked her off the platform. Tortious interference in the context discussed here seems like a plan for vexatious nuisance litigation and SLAPP suits, not any kind of legitimate cause of action.

But, even more to the point, how is it a solution to the consequences of adding more liability to say "let's just pile on more liability to deal with those consequences"? It's liability all the way down. But it's completely disconnected from how all of this works in the real world.

Filed Under: danielle citron, duty of care, intermediary liability, liability, reasonableness, section 230
Companies: onlyfans

Support Public Code, While Helping Support Techdirt

from the synergy dept

Recently, following our announcement that we have removed all Google ads and tracking code from Techdirt, a reader reached out to us with a novel (and greatly appreciated!) proposal for supporting the change and our ongoing reporting while also helping out a good cause: buying an ad — not for their own benefit, but for that of a public interest campaign that aligns perfectly with our own values. That's why you see a new banner in the sidebar on the site, encouraging our readers to sign an open letter put together by FSFE calling on the EU to pass a law requiring all publicly financed software to be made available under a free and open source license.

This reader purchased the ad with their own money, as a way of helping out both Techdirt and the FSFE campaign — and we think this is such an amazing and generous idea that we wanted to call extra attention to it with a post. We've written about this same issue of open sourcing publicly funded software in the past, when the White House began embracing the idea and then unveiled an official open source software policy — but the fact is it should be the norm for all governments that use taxpayer money to develop software. If the public funds something, it should be available to the public by default.

And, of course, we also want to call attention to this campaign as a way that you can support Techdirt. As we said in our post about removing Google trackers from the site, these kinds of reader-friendly changes also take away some of our revenue streams, and increase our reliance on you, our readers, to support us directly when and if you can. We're extremely grateful to all the readers who stepped up and gave us a tip through our Friend of Techdirt option in the Insider Shop, or engaged with one of the many other ways to support us — and now this one generous reader has showed yet another option, and one that allows you to support Techdirt and the public interest at the same time.

So we encourage everyone to sign the open letter to help demonstrate that this kind of campaign works. Moreover, if there's a campaign or an organization out there that you think aligns well with Techdirt's values and readership and that you'd like to support while helping us out in this way, please get in touch and let us know. We don't currently have fixed rates for direct ad purchases like this, and instead prefer to come up with custom solutions that fit your budget and needs — so don't hesitate to reach out and let us know what you have in mind.

Thanks again to all our readers, and today especially to this one reader who came to us with this excellent idea!

Filed Under: ads, open code, open licensing, open source, publicly financed software
Companies: techdirt

Chicago PD Oversight Says ShotSpotter Tech Is Mostly Useless When It Comes To Fighting Gun Crime

from the but-that's-the-thing-it-says-it's-good-at-[confused-noises] dept

Gunshot detection tech provider ShotSpotter is fighting a PR battle on multiple fronts after more news surfaced that its analysts may alter detection records to fit police narratives and investigators' theories. Communications and court documents obtained by the Associated Press confirmed ShotSpotter allows law enforcement officers to request modifications to detection records. And the company apparently used to allow police officers to modify the data themselves.

In addition to its questionable handling of evidence, ShotSpotter is also shedding customers. Law enforcement agencies in some cities have decided it's not worth paying for a product that can't reliably detect gunshots. Cities that have dumped ShotSpotter have reported false positive rates as high as 75%.

ShotSpotter has fired back, claiming everyone reporting on its tech is wrong about its tech. It also claims it doesn't alter or allow alteration to reports submitted as evidence in criminal cases. Its assertions ring pretty fucking hollow in the face of all of this reporting, which relies on documents filed in court or obtained through public records requests. ShotSpotter's claims, however, are supported by nothing more than the company's own ineffective anger.

Now, there's even more evidence showing ShotSpotter isn't worth paying for. The Chicago PD's Inspector General has concluded its investigation of the tech the city pays roughly $11 million/year for. And it has found the tech doesn't seem to be worth the money.

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Public Safety section has issued a report on the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) use of ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot detection technology and CPD’s response to ShotSpotter alert notifications. OIG concluded from its analysis that CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts can seldom be shown to lead to investigatory stops which might have investigative value and rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime.

[...]

The CPD data examined by OIG does not support a conclusion that ShotSpotter is an effective tool in developing evidence of gun-related crime.

That's pretty damning. Compare and contrast with ShotSpotter's own irate statements in defense of its product:

[T]he ShotSpotter system is highly accurate at detecting outdoor gunshots and benefits communities battling gun violence.

Well, there's plenty of evidence out there saying the system isn't accurate. And this report [PDF] by the Chicago PD's oversight contradicts the second part of the company's claim. It isn't benefiting "communities battling gun violence." According to this investigation, only the rarest spotted shot leads to anything that might battle gun violence.

And, according to this investigation, the installation of the tech is actually causing more problems for areas of Chicago where gun violence is already an issue. ShotSpotter has given Chicago police officers yet another excuse to engage in suspicionless stops and searches. This is from the report:

In reviewing ISR [investigative stop report] narratives for mentions of ShotSpotter alerts, OIG also identified 10 ISRs (13.9%) in which reporting officers referred to the aggregate results of the ShotSpotter system as informing their decision to initiate a stop or their course of action during the stop, even when they were not responding to a specific ShotSpotter alert. For example, some officers during the reporting period identified the fact of being in an area known to have frequent ShotSpotter alerts as an element of the reasonable suspicion required to justify the stop. Other officers reported conducting “protective pat downs” following a stop because they knew themselves to be in areas where ShotSpotter alerts were frequent.

If there's a silver lining for ShotSpotter in this report, it's one that only benefits the tech provider, rather than Chicago residents. The Inspector General says it's possible there are more investigations linked to ShotSpotter detections, but it can't really tell because the Chicago PD's recordkeeping is a mess. What the IG sees is almost no connection between ShotSpotter reports and gun-crime investigations. But there's a slim chance this may be the PD's fault.

If this result is attributable in part to missing or nonmatched records of investigatory stops that did take place as a direct consequence of a ShotSpotter alert, CPD’s record-keeping practices are obstructing a meaningful analysis of the effectiveness of the technology.

And, if that's part of the problem, then that's on the Chicago PD if the city decides to stop paying $11 million a year for nothing more than additional rights violations by police officers.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago police department, evidence, shotspotter
Companies: shotspotter

Daily Deal: The 2021 Complete All-in-One Adobe Creative Cloud Suite Course Bundle

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

The 2021 Complete All-in-One Adobe Creative Cloud Suite Course Bundle has 12 courses designed to teach you about video editing, animations, photography, design, and more. Courses cover popular Adobe products like Lightroom, After Effects, Photoshop, and Adobe XD. The bundle is on sale for $34.

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

Trumpist Gettr Social Network Continues To Speed Run Content Moderation Learning Curve: Bans, Then Unbans, Roger Stone

from the welcome-to-the-content-moderation-game dept

Remember Gettr? That's the Trumpist social network run by former Trump spokesperson (and vexatious lawsuit filer) Jason Miller that promised to be supportive of "free speech." As we point out what happens with every new social network that jumps into the space with promises to "support free speech!" and "not censor!" before long they will begin to realize content moderation is required to keep your site running -- and soon they discover that content moderation will involve difficult choices. And, sometimes, it involves making mistakes.

Of course, whenever Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or whoever else note that they made a "mistake" with a content moderation decision and reverse it, there are always some people who insist it couldn't possibly be a mistake and must be [insert conspiratorial reason here]. So I find it hilarious that on Wednesday, Gettr got to experience all this as well. First, Trump buddy and admitted "dirty trickster" Roger Stone went on Gab -- another such social network -- to whine about how he was "censored" by Gettr, claiming it was because he had made what he believed were disparaging remarks about Miller (and Steve Bannon).

This graphic alone is pretty hilarious, given all the people who insisted that Gettr doesn't do moderation.

A few hours later, Jason Miller told Salon reporter Zachary Petrizzo, that it was all a mistake, and blamed the problem of a bunch of fake Stone accounts that the site was trying to get rid of. In the process, Miller claimed, they "accidentally" deleted the real Stone's account. The timing coming right after Stone made remarks about Miller was, apparently, entirely coincidental.

"Multiple fake Roger Stone accounts were suspended following user complaints, but his real Gettr account was inadvertently suspended too," Miller told Salon via email. "His correct account is currently active, and the imposter accounts have all been removed."

It's almost like... running a social media account with malicious actors are trying to abuse requires content moderation, and that will often involve making mistakes, rather than, say, "bias" or desires to silence particular people.

Who knows why Gettr actually suspended Stone? These kinds of things happen all the time on all the other social media sites too. It doesn't mean it's malicious or directed at silencing a critic (though, honestly, there's a higher likelihood that is true with a site like Gettr than with Twitter or Facebook, that actually have real policies in place and a history of training staff to moderate judiciously). It could actually be a mistake. Just like Twitter and Facebook sometimes make mistakes.

I'm still waiting for Miller and his fans to realize that all of these challenges that Gettr is facing are no different than the ones that other social media apps faced -- and that maybe all their earlier complaints of "censorship" were just as bullshit then as the claims about Gettr being censorial today are. I get the feeling that I'll be waiting a long, long time for that recognition to set in.

Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, content moderation, jason miller, mistakes, roger stone
Companies: gab, gettr

California's 'Open Access' Fiber Broadband Plan Is Making Telecom Giants Like AT&T Nervous

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Back in 2009, the FCC funded a Harvard study that concluded (pdf) that open access broadband networks (letting multiple ISPs come in and compete over a central, core network) resulted in lower broadband prices and better service in numerous locations worldwide. Of course when the Obama FCC released its "National Broadband Plan" back in 2010, this realization (not to mention an honest accounting of the sector's limited competition) was nowhere to be found. Both parties ignored the data and instead doubled down on our existing national telecom policy plan: letting AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast do pretty much whatever they'd like. Something, of course, taken to ridiculous new heights during the Trump era.

Since then, "open access" has become somewhat of a dirty word in telecom policy, and even companies like Google Fiber -- which originally promised to adhere to the concept on its own network before quietly backpedaling -- are eager to pretend the idea doesn't exist. Why? Because having ISPs compete in layers over a centralized network may improve service, boost speeds, and reduce prices (see: this community-run network in Ammon, Idaho), but it would eat into the revenues of the regional monopolies bone-grafted to our intelligence gathering apparatus, and you simply can't have that.

Which is why it was surprising to see California recently pass a $6 billion broadband infrastructure bill that does something unique: it mandates the creation of a massive "middle mile" fiber network that will be open access, which should encourage increased competition. The original announcement breaks down the spending this way:

$3.25 billion to build, operate and maintain an open access, state-owned middle mile network – high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at higher speeds over longer distances between local networks.

$2 billion to set up last-mile broadband connections that will connect homes and businesses with local networks. The legislation expedites project deployment and enables Tribes and local governments to access this funding.

$750 million for a loan loss reserve fund to bolster the ability of local governments and nonprofits to secure financing for broadband infrastructure.

That's a lot of money that could be potentially going somewhere other than entrenched telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast. That means increased competition, something AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others fight tooth and nail (rather successfully) to avoid. You can tell AT&T in particular is nervous about it, because the new bill's passage forced the company to recently launch this silly astroturf website claiming to represent "Californians for broadband equity." The website is chock full of stock photos of children, and lots of empty lip service to "fixing the digital divide":

Only if you look at some of the materials posted in the page's resources section do you see the site is backed by AT&T and Frontier Communications.

To be very clear, dominant regional monopolies in California like AT&T and Frontier love the decades-old US telecom policy approach to broadband. Namely, throw billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies at incumbent monopolies, which then fail to deliver what was promised, refuse to give back the money, and then pretend they're not part of the problem.

There's an entire universe of AT&T-linked orgs and individuals that suffer an absolute embolism anytime taxpayer resources are used to build local community broadband efforts. But those same groups and individuals are nowhere to be found every time AT&T gets a $42 billion tax cut for doing absolutely nothing. Or gets billions in subsidies and regulatory favors in exchange for fiber networks that are always, mysteriously, half deployed.

In short, AT&T and Frontier want the focus to remain exclusively on giving them yet more money to shore up access in areas they've neglected for years. What they don't want is any money going toward competition within their existing footprint. Despite the fact that high prices due to limited competition are one of the highest barriers to access for many communities (something particularly pronounced during COVID). US broadband is expensive and mediocre thanks to regional monopolization and the state/federal corruption that protects it. There's a lot of time and money spent trying to ignore or deny that fact.

If you didn't understand this context you might stumble into this new AT&T website thinking it's a well intentioned group just super interested in helping poor toddlers get broadband. But it's really just incumbent monopolies trying to ensure more of California's new broadband budget goes to them, and less goes to pesky competitors that might force them to (gasp) compete on price. Should AT&T and Comcast not get their adequate slice of California's planned broadband budget, you can expect a lot more lobbying and policy theatrics of this sort in the fall.

Filed Under: broadband, california, competition, fcc, fiber, open access
Companies: at&t, frontier

Fake 'U.S. Copyright Office' Imposter Gets Google To Delist URLs On Section 1201 Grounds

from the fake-views dept

We've done more than our share of posts in the past about the problems within the DMCA takedown system as currently practiced. The reason for so many posts is in part due to the sheer number of problems with how this all works. For starters, when notices go out to search engines like Google to delist "problem" URLs, those notices are often times generated by automated systems that unsurprisingly result in a vast majority of notices targeting URLs that are non-infringing. As in, over 99% of those notices. And even once we get past the malpractice of using automation buckshot notices that result in an incredible amount of collateral damage, we then have to add the wide open avenues for fraud and abuse of the DMCA system. That type of fraud runs the gamut, from trolls merely trying to cause chaos for the fun of it to competitors of certain forms of content trying to hurt the competition. In the immortal words of former NFL coach John Fox: "It's all a problem."

And, on the fraud and abuse side, it's such a problem that perfectly legit URLs can get delisted by Google due to a request from "The U.S. Copyright Office", even though that office doesn't make those sorts of requests.

Google has received several takedown notices that claim to come from the 'U.S. Copyright Office', requesting the search engine to remove 'problematic' URLs. The Government body, which is generally not involved in copyright enforcement, informs TorrentFreak that it has nothing to do with these notices. Unfortunately, Google didn't immediately spot the imposter.  

The Copyright Office is not supposed to take sides in these matters. So, we were quite surprised to see its name on several takedown notices that were sent to Google over the past few days.

The takedown requests are not typical ‘Section 512’ notices. Instead, they point out sites that circumvent technical protection measures, which is in violation of the DMCA’s ‘Section 1201.’ That’s also how Google processed them.

And process at least some of them, Google did. The notices claiming to be from the Copyright Office indicated they were sent on behalf of the Video Industry Association of America, which doesn't appear to exist based on a Google search I performed. Even if it does, the Copyright Office is not a party to these sorts of takedown requests on behalf of any organization. The URLs targeted appear to be mostly related to stream-ripping sites, but not just sites that offer that service. Instead, some of the URLs targeted merely mention sites that offer stream-ripping services, which is how several TorrentFreak posts got targeted.

Whoever is doing this, it is most certainly not the Copyright Office.

This suspicion was confirmed by the U.S. Copyright Office. A spokesperson informs TorrentFreak that the notices in question were not submitted by them.

This doesn’t mean that the takedown requests were ignored by Google. While our links are still indexed, several of the URLs listed in the notices have indeed been removed because of the notices, which is a problem.

It's a huge problem, actually. In fact, it demonstrates quite well how broken the current DMCA system has become. The fact that this sort of impersonation is so easy is an issue. The fact that Google is so inundated with these types of requests, which again are overwhelmingly illegitimate, that it cannot review them thoroughly enough to notice the clear impersonation of the Copyright Office at work here is another issue. And the fact that the DMCA process is obviously viewed by some bad actors as a wide open tool to attack their own competition is yet another issue.

And, notably, there isn't even an appeal process for Section 1201 takedown requests.

Unfortunately, there is no counter-notification option for ‘Section 1201’ takedown notices. This means that sites and services that are affected by these bogus notices have no official appeal process they can use.

But perhaps the U.S. Copyright Office can help with that?

Or maybe someone can just pretend to be the Copyright Office and help. You know, on its "behalf." It works for the bad actors, after all.

Filed Under: circumvention, copyfraud, copyright abuse, dmca, dmca 1201, takedowns, us copyright office
Companies: google