New Year's Message: The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is A Twisty Path

from the twisty-little-passages,-all-alike dept

As long term readers of Techdirt know, each year since 2008 my final post of the year has been a kind of reflection on optimism. This tradition started after I had a few people ask how come it seemed that I was so optimistic when I seemed to spend all my time writing about scary threats to innovation, the internet, and civil liberties. And there is an odd contradiction in there, but it's one that shows up among many innovation optimists. I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's eloquent response to those who called internet dreamers like John Perry Barlow "techno utopians."

You don’t found an organization like the Electronic Frontier Foundation because you are sanguine about the future of the internet: you do so because your hope for an amazing, open future is haunted by terror of a network suborned for the purposes of spying and control.

And to some extent, my own thinking follows along those lines. I can see amazing, astounding opportunities to continue to make the world a better place through the power of the internet and innovation. I also think we have a bit of amnesia about just how much good the internet and innovation have already created for the world. But, that doesn't mean we get to stop thinking about ways in which it might go wrong.

If you'd like to read the past years' New Year's Messages, here's the full list:

• 2008: On Staying Happy
• 2009: Creativity, Innovation And Happiness
• 2010: From Pessimism To Optimism... And The Power Of Innovation
• 2011: From Optimism And Innovation... To The Power To Make A Difference
• 2012: Innovation, Optimism And Opportunity: All Coming Together To Make Real Change
• 2013: Optimism On The Cusp Of Big Changes
• 2014: Change, Innovation And Optimism, Despite Challenges
• 2015: Keep Moving Forward
• 2016: No One Said It Would Be Easy...
• 2017: Keep On Believing
• 2018: Do Something Different
• 2019: Opportunities Come From Unexpected Places
• 2020: Make The World A Better Place

Just a few months ago in a conversation with some friends in the tech policy world, I had to admit I was kind of surprised at how defeated they sounded. With dozens of laws being proposed (and a few getting passed) around the globe, at the federal level, and at the state level, there was a sense of despair among many internet supporters, that the good parts of the internet were on their last legs. I can understand where this thinking is coming from, and yet... even with all that, I remain optimistic. That's not to say I don't expect any of the bad laws to go into practice and destroy some of the value of the internet. I'm pretty sure a few such laws are likely to happen, and the consequences of them will be bad.

But, perhaps I've reached the age where I recognize that there is no "end of history" and no final state of things. These very bad ideas may come into play, but the internet is amazingly resilient in routing around such nonsense, one way or another, over time. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote is that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." A similar kind of thing can be said about innovation. How it plays out may take quite a while, but it tends towards improving the world.

That's not to say that there aren't setbacks and problems and disasters -- because obviously there are. But a key part of innovation is not just the act of creating something new and useful and getting it adopted by the world, but rather having society learn to adapt to it. I'm reminded of Clay Shirky discussing the innovation of the printing press, and how there was about a century of upheaval over that bit of innovation, until society really began to grapple with its power. Obviously, the internet has taken that to an entirely new level, and society is still very much adjusting.

Indeed, as we've noted repeatedly, many of the "problems" that are now blamed on the internet are actually problems that have existed in society for centuries that we just see more now because of the internet. I am still waiting for people to do a better job breaking down which of the problems commonly associated with the internet today are actually just the internet shining a light on existing problems v. exacerbating or creating them (and also weighing those against which societal problems have actually diminished thanks to the internet -- because that's a long list as well).

But, in the end, I have faith that society itself adapts. Not always neatly, and certainly not without many (potentially extremely problematic) mistakes. But society adapts. And the innovation drives it forward: not in a straight line, not without trips and falls, but eventually.

Indeed, despite the mess of the last few years -- and especially "the narrative" that "everyone hates the internet" -- I've been seeing more and more recognition that there are opportunities to return to an optimism about tech. Over the summer, I wrote about the concept of the Eternal October, bringing back an optimistic view of how tech and innovation can be good, but with the humility and wisdom gleaned from the mistakes of the past couple of decades.

History doesn't end. It just teaches us more lessons. The question is what do we do with those lessons.

I've spent the past few months exploring these concepts more and more, and in the New Year expect to see a lot more writing on this. I've been talking to lots of people who are legitimately exploring ways to turn today's innovation into something a lot more promising than it is, and it has me more excited than I've been in a while. And that's even with all of the nonsense happening among policy makers and regulators around the world. Even as they do whatever it is that they do, actual innovators are heads down working on creating a better world.

More specific to what's been happening here at Techdirt and the Copia Institute, we've been engaged in a number of different policy discussions to try to prevent governments from making things worse. The Copia Institute officially launched our Copia Gaming initiative (and we've been really busy on that front so stay tuned for a bunch of exciting announcements). We've also got some fun changes for Techdirt itself in store -- including a big one that has been over two years in the making, but where we finally see some light at the end of a tunnel.

This year, we also took all third-party ads off the site as well as all Google tracking (at some point next week, we'll do our annual stats review -- but for the first time without using Google Analytics, since that's gone). Of course, that also means that we're more reliant than ever on having our community support us, so please consider supporting the work we do if you can. A few months back, we finally moved on from our own homemade "Insider Chat" and launched the Techdirt Insider Discord, which has been tremendous fun -- and we've got more planned for that too.

On that note, my final paragraph of these final posts of the year is always about thanking all of you, the community here at Techdirt, for making this all worthwhile. I started Techdirt over twenty years ago as a fun project that allowed me to work out some of my own thoughts on the intersection of technology, innovation, business, and civil liberties, and over the years it's grown, and I still am amazed each day that anyone pays any attention at all, let alone contributes to the discussions we have here. The community -- of which you reading this are a key part -- is integral to what makes Techdirt so much fun for me. You challenge me, make me think, introduce me to new ideas, help me explore impossibly challenging subjects, and just generally push me and the rest of Techdirt to be better. So thank you, once again, for making Techdirt such a special and wonderful place where we can share and discuss all of these ideas. I look forward to whatever happens as we enter 2022.

Filed Under: new year's, new year's message, optimism, predictions

DHS, ICE Begin Body Camera Pilot Program With Surprisingly Good Policies In Place

from the exceeding-admittedly-low-expectations dept

Following protests over killings by law enforcement officers, the Department of Justice decided it might be a good idea to equip more police officers with body cameras. In May 2015, it announced the federal government would be spending $75 million over the next three years to purchase body cameras for local law enforcement agencies.

The DOJ saw the potential for body cameras to produce more accountability, lower the chances of deadly interactions, and rebuild some trust with the communities officers served. That's presumably why it opted out of this push for body camera adoption. Five months after it announced the body cam grant program, DOJ reps told local law enforcement that use of body cameras wasn't allowed when partnering with federal law enforcement. Either the cameras stayed home or the local cops did. No exceptions.

It wasn't until five years later that the DOJ finally decided it was ok for federal agents to work with local law enforcement officers sporting body cameras, perhaps realizing the cameras simply weren't going to go away. After all, it had encouraged adoption of the tech with three years of federal funding. But this still meant federal officers were going about their work unobserved, which still seemed problematic given all the advantages the DOJ said these cameras created when it started handing out federal cash in 2015.

It took another year before the DOJ finally decided federal officers should get with the body camera program. Six years after it invested in nationwide distribution of body cameras, federal officers are finally going to start wearing them. The ATF was the first to perform a test run of the cameras. Now, the DHS is following suit.

Agents with an investigative unit of the Department of Homeland Security will wear body cameras for the first time as part of a six-month pilot program that will focus on the costs and benefits of using the technology in federal law enforcement, officials said Tuesday.

The cameras will be used during the test by 55 members of the SWAT-like special response teams at Homeland Security Investigations in Houston, Newark, New Jersey, and New York, an official told reporters.

That's the first wave of adoption for the DHS, albeit not one that guarantees permanent adoption. The second wave will rope in one of the federal government's most controversial agencies.

The senior ICE official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to provide details on the program before the announcement, said the agency expects later to expand the pilot to include officers who conduct immigration enforcement arrests.

Fortunately, this rollout is accompanied by something that often goes missing when the federal government deploys new tech: privacy impact assessments and written policies. In this case, there's both. The DHS has issued a Privacy Impact Assessment [PDF] that contains the guidelines for camera use by officers. This one directly addresses the ICE pilot program.

The rules laid down are actually pretty solid, which is somewhat surprising given the federal government's reluctance to adopt the tech and ICE's roguelike reputation.

ICE personnel must record Pilot enforcement activities at the start of the activity, or, if not practicable, as soon as safely possible thereafter. Once a Body Worn Camera is activated, ICE personnel should only deactivate the Body Worn Camera when their participation or involvement in the enforcement activity has concluded. If ICE personnel fail to activate their Body Worn Camera, or if the recording is interrupted, they must provide a statement detailing the reason why they failed to activate the Body Worn Camera or why the recording was interrupted.

ICE personnel will verbally notify (i.e., provide notice to) individuals that they are being recorded if (or as soon as) it is operationally feasible. This notice should not be construed as a requirement for ICE to obtain consent from the subjects being recorded. The Body Worn Camera will be placed on a visible location on ICE personnel’s outerwear (e.g., on vest or helmet) so that individuals can see the Body Worn Camera.

ICE personnel are prohibited from intentionally making Body Worn Camera recordings in places or areas where cameras generally are not allowed or permissible (e.g., locker rooms, dressing rooms, medical facilities, restrooms, in facilities where recording is prohibited) unless related to an enforcement activity.

ICE personnel should not record encounters with undercover officers, confidential informants, and cooperating defendants.

ICE personnel should not record in a manner that would infringe on activity protected by the First Amendment (e.g., lawful protests).

Body Worn Cameras will not be used during undercover operations or in situations in which it would pose a risk to officer or public safety.

Body Worn Camera recordings will not be used for any facial recognition activities.

All recordings collected during this pilot period will be saved. Anything of evidentiary value will be sorted out. Recordings can (at least theoretically) be obtained with FOIA requests.

Of some concern is the directive forbidding the recording of First Amendment activities. On one hand, you don't want federal agents to engage in surveillance of protected activities. On the other hand, you don't want any interactions between federal officers and protesters to go unrecorded. So, this will have to be refined. It would seem that the rule ordering the recording of all "enforcement activities" would supersede the rule forbidding the recording of First Amendment activities when officers interact with protesters. But it will probably be months or years before the public knows how ICE officers have chosen to interpret these rules.

Still, it's a good set of ground rules. And it gets a little better. ICE officers are expected to record any questioning of individuals (whether in custody or not), as well as any brief detentions or frisks of individuals they encounter. It's also mandatory for all warrant service and searches incident to an arrest.

Better late than never. And a far better set of rules than was expected, given both the federal government's resistance to early adoption and ICE's general unwillingness to welcome examination of its enforcement efforts. Hopefully, the rollout will continue with similar rules in place for other federal agencies. While body cameras aren't a panacea for law enforcement misconduct, they're far better than having nothing but an officer's word for what went down.

Filed Under: accountability, body cameras, dhs, ice, transparency

Remembering Techdirt Contributors Sherwin And Elliot

from the leaving-their-mark dept

It's been a rough year for our community of tech policy advocates, with us losing two of our own, Sherwin Siy in July and then Elliot Harmon in October. We remembered Sherwin here, and the EFF wrote about Elliot over there.

But what we realized is that both of them had also written here at Techdirt, so we thought we'd use this end-of-year time of reflection to share those posts from the Techdirt archives.

Sherwin appears to have had just one post, but it was a quintessentially Sherwin post that both relished the absurdity of the world, while diligently explaining it:

"Die Another Eh: What Does It Mean Now That James Bond Is In The Public Domain In Canada?"

Elliot also wrote about wayward applications of intellectual property laws. His first post here was about a winner of the EFF's stupid patent of the month "award," which was bestowed upon Ford for having patented a windshield. He then later wrote about another stupid patent with Daniel Nazer, this time "celebrating" Elsevier's patent on peer review.

He also wrote about copyright getting out of hand, including in this post about how current copyright policy creates dangers to research.

Of course, IP isn't the only thing to worry about in tech policy; there's also the chilling efforts to increase liability for platforms. He wrote about the problems with these proposals too, counseling Congress not to force platforms to censor their users, and warning about the inevitable harms of SESTA/FOSTA in several other posts:

• Google Will Survive SESTA. Your Startup Might Not.
• House Internet Censorship Bill Is Just Like The Senate Bill, Except Worse
• Internet Censorship Bills Won't Help Catch Sex Traffickers

These battles obviously continue, and somehow we'll have to fight them without two of our closest and smartest allies. But while Sherwin and Elliot may not be here anymore, their insights will live on.

Filed Under: elliot harmon, sherwin siy

DC Metro PD's Powerful Review Panel Keeps Giving Bad Cops Their Jobs Back

from the ensuring-a-broken-system-remains-broken dept

After bad cops do bad things, other cops will rush to the defense of the agency employing them, claiming most cops are good and these officers are outliers. These assertions might be more believable if law enforcement agencies (and their unions) didn't regularly cover for bad officers or, in the case of police unions, work tirelessly to ensure bad cops get their jobs back.

Everything works in favor of bad cops. Their union reps can force agencies to rehire them. Fellow officers look the other way or falsify reports to cover for their actions. Oversight boards are neutered, ignored, and obstructed. Police officials with the power to rid agencies of bad officers either refuse to do so or are powerless in the face of restrictive union contracts.

If there's an upside to all of this right now, it's that transparency has been forced on several law enforcement agencies over the past few years, making it easier to obtain misconduct records. Agencies no longer have the opacity to engage in repeated denials of severe misconduct by officers. And they can no longer claim they truly care about ensuring only the best officers remain employed.

And there are other, non-official sources for this data. Entities like DDoS (Distributed Denial of Secrets) have exfiltrated files from law enforcement servers, resulting in revelations law enforcement agencies weren't willing to make.

Disciplinary files freed by a ransomware hack were converted to searchable documents and examined by The Reveal and DCist. The documents show how much the Washington, DC police department has done to ensure some of its worst officers stayed on the payroll. Criminal misconduct by law enforcement officers apparently isn't worth a firing, not when DC police officials have the final say on discipline.

Internal records show that MPD’s Disciplinary Review Division sought to terminate at least 24 officers currently on the force for criminal misconduct from 2009 to 2019. In all but three of those cases, the records show, the Adverse Action Panel blocked the termination and instead issued much lighter punishment – an average of a 29-day suspension without pay. These officers amassed disciplinary records for domestic violence, DUIs, indecent exposure, sexual solicitation, stalking and more. In several instances, they fled the scenes of their crimes.

It was more than these 24 bad apples escaping termination. Other officers engaging in criminal activity or policy violations supposedly worthy of termination kept their jobs, too.

The department did not seek to terminate the other 40 officers, more than half of whom the Internal Affairs Division believed had been driving either drunk or recklessly. Other criminal conduct the department did not try to fire current officers for included recklessly handling a firearm, harassment, property damage, stalking and theft.

These were all sustained complaints. The PD had arrived at the conclusion officers had violated laws and yet still decided none of it was worth being fired for. The end result is an implicit blessing of criminal behavior -- one that assures officers no matter how severe the misconduct, they'll still have a job.

It also exacerbates existing, long-running problems within law enforcement. The records show seven officers committed domestic assault, but all were able to retain their positions. Studies have shown law enforcement has a domestic abuse problem. Data and anecdotal information has shown law enforcement in general does not care if it has a domestic abuse problem. One officer retained his job despite repeatedly assaulting his wife, who told her pastor she felt the officer would "try to kill her" if she caused problems for him at work. Another allegedly ran over his wife -- something apparently confirmed by hospital reports detailing tire marks on her foot, ankle, and calf. After a three-week vacation, Officer DeVon Goldring was back at work.

Violence against spouses and women is just part of the cop game in DC:

Other personnel files show that an internal investigation concluded that Officer Steven Ferris was arrested for simple assault in 2012 after Internal Affairs reported he confessed that he punched his wife so hard that he fractured a bone around her eye socket. Another officer, Jonathan Goodman, allegedly hit two women at a restaurant in 2010; when one of them said she was calling the cops, he pulled out his badge and replied, “Bitch, I am the police,” according to the files.

The discipline system in the DC Metro Police Department is severely dysfunctional. The PD may want officers fired but the internal Adverse Action Panel has final say. It is staffed by a rotating group of police officials whose views, one would assume, would be aligned with their employer. But these officials -- when sitting in these positions -- tend to view fireable offenses as mild disciplinary problems worth little more than a suspension. This internal friction has been a problem for years. Documents obtained from a former director of the department's Disciplinary Review Division show two-thirds of all fired officers were reinstated by the Adverse Action Panel.

Crimes that would put regular people in jail aren't enough to keep a Metro PD officer from staying employed. The refusal to fire officers over criminal activity and severe misconduct tells bad cops they're pretty much guaranteed employment no matter what they do. It tells aspiring bad cops there's little to fear in terms of reprisal. And it tells the actual good cops there's no reason to blow the whistle on bad officers, since the only thing it will result in is retaliation.

Filed Under: bad cops, dc metro, dc metro police, law enforcement, police

Missouri Governor Still Expects Journalists To Be Prosecuted For Showing How His Admin Leaked Teacher Social Security Numbers

from the let-it-go,-mike dept

Missouri Governor Mike Parson is nothing if not consistent in his desire to stifle free speech. As you'll recall, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discovered that the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website was programming in such an incompetent fashion that it would reveal, to anyone who knew where to look, the social security numbers of every teacher and administrator in the system (including those no longer employed there). The reporting on the vulnerability was done exactly following ethical disclosure best practices -- getting just enough evidence of the vulnerability, alerting the state to the problem and not publishing anything until the vulnerability was fixed. The FBI told Missouri officials early on "that this incident is not an actual network intrusion" and DESE initially wrote up a press release thanking the journalists for alerting them to this.

But then Parson blundered his way into making a mess of it, insisting that the reporters were hackers and ordering the Missouri Highway Patrol to "investigate" them for prosecution. When people mocked him for this, he doubled down by insisting that this was real hacking and that those reporting otherwise were part of "the fake news."

A month later, DESE admitted that it had fucked up, apologized to all the teachers and administrators (current and former) who its own incompetence had exposed, and offered credit monitoring to them all. Notably, DESE did not apologize to the journalists who discovered this mess, and the governor has continued to stand by his call to prosecute them.

Earlier this week the Highway Patrol claimed it had completed its investigation... and turned the findings over to state prosecutors. That alone seems worrisome, as there's nothing to turn over to prosecutors here beyond "our governor is a very foolish man, who can't admit to his own failings."

Capt. John Hotz said the results were turned over to Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson.

“The investigation has been completed and turned over to the Cole County Prosecutor’s office,” Hotz told the Post-Dispatch on Monday.

And the Governor still thinks the end result will be the prosecution of journalists for exposing the fact that his own administration ran a dangerously incompetent computer system that put 600,000 current and former state employees' private info at risk:

Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday expressed his opinion the Cole County prosecuting attorney would bring charges in the case of a Post-Dispatch reporter who alerted the state to a significant data vulnerability.

“I don’t think that’ll be the case,” Parson said when asked what he would do if the prosecutor didn’t pursue the case. “That’s up to the prosecutor; that’s his job to do.”

Parson's continued insistence that this was unauthorized hacking is absolute garbage.

“If somebody picks your lock on your house — for whatever reason, it’s not a good lock, it’s a cheap lock or whatever problem you might have — they do not have the right to go into your house and take anything that belongs to you,” Parson said.

That analogy is just dumb on multiple levels. They didn't pick any lock. They didn't intrude somewhere they weren't supposed to go. The website put the info on their computers in the HTML. They didn't break any locks. They didn't access a system they didn't have access to. They just went where they were allowed to go, and the state's incompetent technologists handed them info it should not have.

Under Parson's definition of "hacking" it would be easy to turn anyone into a hacker. Just expose data you shouldn't expose on a website, and wait until anyone visited the page. That's not how this should work and the fact that he's still pressing this issue raises serious questions about Parson's competence to do anything, let alone run an entire state.

Filed Under: criminalizing security, ethical disclosure, hacking, journalism, mike parson, missouri highway patrol, vulnerability
Companies: st. louis post-dispatch

Oversight Board Overturning Instagram Takedown Of Ayahuasca Post Demonstrates The Impossibility Of Content Moderation

from the this-is-not-easy dept

Congress has been holding lots of "but think of the children online!" hearings over the past couple of months, and one prominent topic that comes up over and over again is the fact that people can find "drug" information online. Fears about kids and drugs goes back decades, but politicians love it, because it always works. And, of course, the media loves to run these overhyped stories. A quick search finds dozens of stories like the following in just the last month or so:

• Teens have easier access to drugs as illegal trade booms on social media
• Instagram pushes drug content to teens
• Social media platforms becoming sites of illegal fentanyl drug sales targeting teens, L.A. officials warn
• WARNING: Dealers tempt kids with edible drugs via social media
• Record number of drug overdose deaths brings new scrutiny to social media apps
• Instagram offers 'drug pipeline' to kids, tech advocacy group claims

There are many more such stories, but you get the idea. The Instagram stories, in particular, were targeted by the recent Senate hearing which was focused on allowing Senators to grandstand on how bad Instagram supposedly is for kids. Instagram responded to the report by pointing out that it's doing a ton of stuff to try to block such content:

"We removed 1.8 million pieces of content related to drug sales in the last quarter alone, and due to our improving detection technology, the prevalence of such content is about 0.05 percent of content viewed, or about 5 views per every 10,000. We'll continue to improve in this area in our ongoing efforts to keep Instagram safe, particularly for our youngest community members."

But, within a day of that report getting so much attention, you had the Oversight Board step in to demonstrate how much more difficult an issue this is than it sounds to grandstanding politicians or narrative-driving journalists. The Oversight Board overturned Instagram's decision to take down a post that was promoting ayahuasca as medicine. Instagram took down the post (which had just started trending) because it was promoting it as medical treatment:

In July 2021, an Instagram account for a spiritual school based in Brazil posted a picture of a dark brown liquid in a jar and two bottles, described as ayahuasca in the accompanying text in Portuguese. Ayahuasca is a plant-based brew with psychoactive properties that has deeply-rooted religious and ceremonial uses among Indigenous and other groups in some South American countries, and related communities elsewhere. Ayahuasca contains plants which are sources of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a substance that is prohibited under Schedule I of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the law of many countries, though there are relevant exceptions under international law for substances containing DMT such as ayahuasca, and exceptions under some national laws, including in Brazil, for other uses such as religious and Indigenous use.

The text states that “AYAHUASCA IS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE COURAGE TO FACE THEMSELVES” and includes statements that ayahuasca is for those who want to “correct themselves,” “enlighten,” “overcome fear” and “break free.” It further states ayahuasca is a “remedy” and “can help you” if one has humility and respect. It ends with “Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca!/Gratitude, Queen of the Forest!”

The content was viewed over 15,500 times and no users reported it. The post was flagged for review by Meta’s automated systems because it had received around 4,000 views and was “trending.” Meta specified neither the image nor the text triggered automatic review. The post was subsequently reviewed by a human moderator and removed. Meta told the Board that it was removed for violating Facebook’s Community Standard on Regulated Goods, but later stated it removed the content for “violating the Instagram Community Guidelines, which include a link to the Facebook Community Standard on Regulated Goods.” Meta notified the user that the post went against Instagram’s Community Guidelines, stating “post removed for sale of illegal or regulated goods.” The messaging also noted that Meta removes “posts promoting the use of hard drugs.”

So, there are a few interesting tidbits there worth pointing out. Contrary to the fear-mongering and grandstanding, this notes that Instagram has a system to proactively flag this kind of content, and that some of the priority of such reviews is based on whether or not the content is getting a lot of attention and going viral (these are both things that many critics of Facebook/Instagram/Meta insist the company does not do). And, if you just listened to the Senators at hearings, or just read all those news articles above, you might not realize th.

But, the more important thing that this case showcases, is just how difficult it is to make these kinds of calls at scale. What seems obvious to some is not so obvious, and there's a lot of subjectivity involved. This can be seen in the way the two sides (the poster of the original content and the company) explained their thinking. The organization that made the original post about ayahuasca says that it was just an image of a regulated and legal ceremony:

The user stated in their appeal that they are certain the post does not violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines, as their page is informative and never encouraged or recommended the purchase or sale of any product prohibited by the Community Guidelines. They said that they took the photo at one of their ceremonies, which are regulated and legal. According to the user, the account aims to demystify the sacred ayahuasca drink. They said that there is a great lack of knowledge about ayahuasca. The user stated that it brings spiritual comfort to people and their ceremonies can improve societal wellbeing. They further state that they have posted the same content previously on their account and that post remains online.

Instagram, for its part, takes the more hardline "drugs bad, mmkay" line that Congress and the press seems to want them to take:

Meta stated that the content violated Facebook’s Community Standards because “the user described ayahuasca with a heart emoji, referred to it as ‘medicine,’ and stated that it ‘can help you.’” Following a question from the Board about whether the content was removed for violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines or Facebook’s Community Standards, Meta responded the content was removed “for violating the Instagram Community Guidelines, which include a link to the Facebook Community Standards on Regulated Goods.” Specifically, the user violated Instagram’s prohibition on content “buying or selling illegal or prescription drugs (even if legal in your region).” Meta also cited another line of the Community Guidelines which links to the Community Standard on Regulated Goods, which “clarifies that Facebook prohibits content that ‘[c]oordinates or promotes (by which we mean speaks positively about [...] non-medical drugs.’”

Referring to Meta’s values, the company stated that “Safety” displaced “Voice.” Meta noted that users are permitted to advocate for the legalization of non-medical drugs and to discuss the medical and scientific benefits of non-medical drugs, but that there is no religious or traditional use allowance. Meta argued that this rule strikes the correct balance between “Voice” and “Safety.”

Meta also stated that prohibiting this content follows human rights principles. It stated that it considered the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 ICCPR and the right to freedom of religion or belief under Article 18 ICCPR, and argued that its decision satisfied the conditions required to restrict these rights.

According to Meta, Facebook’s Community Standard is easily accessible and its non-public definition of non-medical drug as a “substance that causes ‘a marked change in consciousness’” is apparent. It further argued that the decision sought to protect public health. It stated that dimethyltryptamine (DMT), one of the active hallucinogenic substances in ayahuasca, poses significant safety risks, citing the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The final ruling by the Oversight Board overturn's Instagram's decision to take it down, citing that Instagram's own community guidelines were somewhat confusing and focused on the buying and selling of illegal drugs (though it notes that the rules are confusing, because they said "illegal or prescription drugs (even if legal in your region)" which is, as the Board notes "confusing and contradictory." There was also some level of conflict between Instagram's rules and Facebook's rules, and an unclear delineation of which one should apply where.

But where the impossibility of content moderation on topics like this really shines through is in the discussion about "voice" vs. "safety," which was one of the key points that Instagram made in defending its decision. The Board says it values things differently than the company:

The Board concludes that Meta’s decision to remove the content was not consistent with the company’s values. In this case, as in many, Meta's values of “Voice,” “Safety,” and “Dignity” point in different directions. Meta's decision to take down the post weighted “Safety” over “Voice.” The Board would balance the values differently, believing that the genuine but not particularly strong interests in “Safety” are outweighed in this context by the value of “Voice” and the importance of recognizing the “Dignity” of those engaging in traditional or religious uses where there is historic evidence of such use, including by Indigenous and religious communities. Scientific research indicates that the use of ayahuasca in a controlled context in traditional and religious ceremonies is not linked to a serious risk of harm. Meta cited the European Court of Human Rights case of Franklin-Beentjes and Ceflu-Luz da Floresta v. The Netherlands (Case No. 28167/07, European Court of Human Rights, May 6, 2014) to demonstrate the risks of ayahuasca use. Other courts, however, have reached different conclusions – for example, the United States Supreme Court, in considering the risk of harm from “the circumscribed, sacramental use of hoasca” by members of an ayahuasca based religion, found that the government had not put forward sufficient evidence of harm from religious use, which was its burden, to justify the prohibition in these circumstances. Meta’s rationale does not appear to have taken into account controlled uses of ayahuasca which aim to mitigate health risks. In light of scientific research, Meta’s rationale did not demonstrate the danger of this post to the value of “Safety” in a manner sufficient to displace “Voice” and “Dignity” to the extent to justify removal of the post.

There should be no way to look at that paragraph and not realize just how subjective all of this is. Every one of these involves judgment calls and people weigh different values in very different ways. Even people who work at the same company. Figuring out how to (1) write rules that take all this into account, (2) express those rules in AI moderation systems, (3) express those rules clearly to tens of thousands of human moderators across hundreds of languages and cultures, (4) and expect it to work at a scale of billions of users and millions of posts per day... is literally impossible. It cannot be done well.

That doesn't mean that everyone should give up, but there should at least be some level of humility in recognizing the level of this task, and highlighting individual decisions that we disagree with is not evidence that people or the company "don't care" about this issue, but rather evidence of just how impossible a task this truly is.

Filed Under: ayahuasca, brazil, content moderation, drugs, health misinformation
Companies: facebook, instagram, meta, oversight board

Daily Deal: Zen Wireframe Pro

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

Zen Wireframe is the simplest online software to create wireframes of mobile apps, websites, or any projects that need UI planning. With +58 pre-made components in our wireframe tools, users can simply drag and drop to compose a mobile wireframe or website mockup in just minutes. It's on sale for $65 and if you use the code CYBER20 you'll get an additional 20% off.

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Filed Under: daily deal

Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech

from the great-work-if-you-can-plausibly-deny-it dept

Pretty much exactly a year ago, the Washington Post obtained documents that showed Chinese tech giant Huawei was working with the government to create facial recognition on steroids: a system capable of not just recognizing faces, but also certain ethnicities.

There's only one reason for developing ethnicity recognition in China. The government's war on its Muslim Uighur population continues with no sign of letting up. Huawei's tech would enable the government to identify and track its most undesirable citizens, most likely to find any reason at all to disappear them into the country's many prisons and reeducation camps.

Huawei denied involvement in this project. It did not deny the documents seen by the Washington Post were legitimate, however. Instead, it claimed the documents referred to a test project that had not been deployed. According to its spokesperson, the company would never provide the powerful Chinese government with tools developed for the purpose of targeting Uighur citizens.

It was a pretty weak denial, considering Huawei's disadvantaged position. If it wishes to maintain its healthy market share in China, it will have to comply with the government's demands. That's how it works in China and that's how it's worked for years. And, no matter where they're located, companies don't often spend money on test runs of products they don't intend to sell or deploy in the future. Some testing may be done to see if something is feasible. But if the product works well enough to put on the market (or sell to governments), it will eventually result in real-world applications.

One year later and it's the Washington Post again obtaining documents about Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government. Huawei has suggested it's not working directly with the government to create surveillance gear, claiming it's nothing more than a provider of apolitical networking hardware and software.

But the documents seen by the Post strongly suggest otherwise.

A review by The Washington Post of more than 100 Huawei PowerPoint presentations, many marked “confidential,” suggests that the company has had a broader role in tracking China’s populace than it has acknowledged.

These marketing presentations, posted to a public-facing Huawei website before the company removed them late last year, show Huawei pitching how its technologies can help government authorities identify individuals by voice, monitor political individuals of interest, manage ideological reeducation and labor schedules for prisoners, and help retailers track shoppers using facial recognition.

Pretty disturbing stuff. Also, sadly, pretty normal stuff for the Chinese government, which has shoved thousands of people into hard labor/reeducation camps and subjected its more "free" residents to always-on monitoring of pretty much everything they do.

Huawei, of course, denies this. It told the Post that it "had no knowledge" of the documents referred to in the article. This is a strange statement to make considering the documents were posted on Huawei's site and contain a Huawei watermark.

It also said this:

“Privacy protection is our top priority,” the company said.

Well, clearly it isn't. It's top priority is whatever sells. And it appears to have a lot of products in the pipeline that may prove lucrative if and when it decides these are ready to go live.

The Post reviewed more than 3,000 PowerPoint slides Huawei apparently inadvertently left exposed on its site. The presentations appear to be legitimate and created by the company. However, it's unclear whether these pitches have been made to government agencies. But some of the presentations appear to have been specifically created with the Chinese government in mind.

The Post could not confirm whom the Chinese-language presentations were shown to, or when. Some of the slides showcase surveillance functions specific to police or government agencies, suggesting that Chinese government authorities may have been the intended audience. Many of the PowerPoints have a creation timestamp of Sept. 23, 2014, with the latest modifications to the files made in 2019 or 2020, according to the presentations’ metadata.

That echoing noise you hear is Huawei's claiming ringing hollow. The government's statements in support of Huawei don't actually deny its interest in buying more surveillance gear that can be used to target Uighurs, government critics, and other undesirables. The statement from the government refers only to Huawei's "no back door" agreement, which is really a shot at the US government's blacklisting of Huawei products, rather than a clarification on the products and services discussed in the presentations.

One presentation describes voiceprint analysis developed by Huawei and iFlytek. The latter company has been sanctioned by the US Commerce Department for its human rights violations against the Uighur population. Supposedly, this tech would be used for "national security" purposes -- a purpose heavily exploited by the Chinese government to do everything from imprison Uighur Muslims to imprison protesters fighting its premature takeover of Hong Kong.

Other documents posted by the Post are clearly government-oriented. There's a "smart prison" platform for managing inmates and their reeducation. There's a location tracking system for "political persons of interest." And there's a "Xinjiang surveillance system" that targets the region of the country where most Uighur residents are located.

Huawei's denials are pretty weak in the face of this evidence. It would clearly like to sell surveillance tech to the Chinese government -- tech that will enhance its oppression of minorities and political opponents. That's not going to get it excused from any blacklists, though, so weak denials it is. The Chinese government has long since stopped caring what anyone thinks of it, so it's likely hoping these new and exciting oppression enhancers will be on the market sooner, rather than later.

Filed Under: china, facial recognition, privacy, surveillance
Companies: huawei

Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars

from the sing-me-a-song dept

While we have been discussing the way mainland China's plan to slow-creep the end of democracy in Hong Kong has turned into more of a sprint, it's also quite true that what is occurring there hasn't gotten nearly enough media burn as it should. Plenty of folks have chalked up China's aggressive attitudes towards Hong Kong to the 2019 pro-democracy protests, but the real sprint began once it became clear that Donald Trump stood a good chance of losing the White House to Joe Biden. Trump showed little willingness to push back on China when it came to its treatment of Hong Kong and the theory was that Biden would reverse course and show some backbone. That he generally hasn't is one of geopolitics great ironies. Beijing has taken such steps as to try to erase the CCP's own bloody history, to censor all kinds of Hong Kong pro-democracy culture, and to arrest of all kinds of pro-democracy lawmakers and media.

Democracy is over in Hong Kong, in other words, and has been for some time now. What Beijing is currently in is a mop-up mode, as it looks to take the vice it has built around the city-state and spin the tightening lever. China's actions have made any designation of Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region an absolute punchline, including at present when China is busy arresting more pro-democracy cultural icons, including a popular musician, Denise Ho.

Cantopop star and prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Denise Ho was arrested at her home on Wednesday morning by the city's national security police.

She was one of six people arrested in an early morning operation, all linked to online media organization Stand News. Police later confirmed at a news conference that a seventh person had been arrested. They have been accused by police of "conspiracy to publish seditious material," a colonial-era crime.

Ho, a former Stand News board member, was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Canada. She found fame in the early 2000s with a string of hit albums, before later building a successful career as an actress.

In addition to this raid, Chinese authorities raided the Stand News offices in a wild show of force. Hundreds of officers descended on the operation, all under the cover of the relatively new National Security Law passed in 2020 that seemed specifically designed to erase freedoms in Hong Kong. Perhaps the most surprising part of this story is how long it took for China to take this action against Ho. She is a gay, pro-democracy advocate who has regularly participated in protests and marches, all with a large following thanks to her musical and acting careers. In other words, she is absolutely a sensible target for a Chinese government intent on playing thought police over the city.

Her activism has also drawn other repercussions over the years -- including being blacklisted and censored in mainland China.

Chinese state media has attacked Ho as "Hong Kong poison" in previous years. In 2016, amid criticism of Ho from Beijing, luxury brand Lancome canceled a promotional concert featuring the star, citing "safety reasons."

But it's the rest of the world's collective shoulder shrug that is the issue here. Why is China continuing to take these actions? Because the rest of the world is not de-incentivizing those actions, of course. That we're all sitting back and allowing this to happen without even putting up a fight is and will be a stain on the democracies of the world. That the world let things get this far in the first place without any real pushback, all the more.

Democracy is over in Hong Kong because, in part, we sat back and watched it die. Shame on all of us.

Filed Under: china, democracy, denise ho, free speech, hong kong
Companies: stand news