Facebook Ups Surveillance Of Users To Keep Tabs On People Who Don't Like Facebook

from the threat-level:-oversharing dept

Tech companies are becoming far more than useful repositories of third party records. They're becoming far more active in terms of surveillance, pivoting from platform providers to private sector Big Brothers, weaponizing their data collection capabilities to keep tabs on customers and users.

Facebook has decided to start scanning its platform for threats. Not threats against the many nations it serves or threats targeting other users, but rather threats against Facebook itself.

One of the tools Facebook uses to monitor threats is a "be on lookout" or "BOLO" list, which is updated approximately once a week. The list was created in 2008, an early employee in Facebook's physical security group told CNBC. It now contains hundreds of people, according to four former Facebook security employees who have left the company since 2016.

Facebook notifies its security professionals anytime a new person is added to the BOLO list, sending out a report that includes information about the person, such as their name, photo, their general location and a short description of why they were added.

[...]

Users who publicly threaten the company, its offices or employees — including posting threatening comments in response to posts from executives like CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg — are often added to the list. These users are typically described as making "improper communication" or "threatening communication," according to former employees.

It's not that Facebook shouldn't be on the lookout for credible threats. It's that it's turned its platform into a surveillance tool for its in-house knockoff law enforcement agency. It's not clear whether the company is turning over its internal BOLO list to actual law enforcement, but if it is, that raises even more concerns. Certainly the company should be concerned about legitimate threats. But the company is flagging people simply for expressing their displeasure with Facebook in general.

While some users end up on the list after repeated appearances on company property or long email threats, others might find themselves on the BOLO list for saying something as simple as "F--- you, Mark," "F--- Facebook" or "I'm gonna go kick your a--," according to a former employee who worked with the executive protection team.

This undercuts Facebook's official statements about "rigorous reviews" of detected threats. So does the claim made by former employees that fired employees are automatically added to the BOLO list, despite nearly 100% of fired employees from all vocations posing no threat to their former employers.

And it goes further than simply flagging people (and, apparently, displaying their photos on monitors in the threat detection center). Facebook also tracks listed individuals using their smartphones, thanks to permissions granted to the Facebook app. The app comes pre-installed on most smartphones and most users are unaware how much data Facebook is gathering even when the app isn't in use.

Presumably, if some "F--- you, Mark" person gets too close to the Facebook campus, actual law enforcement is alerted. This sort of situation can only lead to positive outcomes. A person mildly displeased with Facebook's endless fuckery will be greeted by armed officers under the impression a credible threat has been made against the company. Good times.

More good times await. Facebook is also promising to "help" the suicidal by sending the cops after them.

Since 2011, Facebook has allowed users to flag potential suicidal content; reports prompted emails from Facebook urging the poster to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But starting in 2017, Facebook introduced bots to search out and report potential suicidal content. The bots report suspected cries for help to human moderators, who may then "work with first responders, such as police departments to send help," says CNN.

That's right: Facebook might call the cops on you because a bot thought you seemed sad. Facebook executives think that if a user exhibits signs of depression, it's up to Facebook—not the user's friends, family, or community—to intervene.

Rather than trying to track down friends or family, Facebook is turning this over to "first responders." In most cases, the first responder on the scene is going to be the local PD. Given how often police officers have helped talk people out of suicide by killing them, this effort by Facebook is going to result in more dead suicidal people than simply doing nothing.

I'm not saying Facebook should do nothing about threats against the company or to aid people with suicidal thoughts. But these efforts aren't going to make anything better and they're a misuse of Facebook's vast data collections and moderation efforts. There's an abuse of trust happening here and Facebook's efforts are so scattershot and half-assed they're going to cause a lot of collateral damage.

Filed Under: privacy, surveillance, threats
Companies: facebook

A Nesting Doll Of Stupidity: Rudy Giuliani's Twitter Typo Leads To Bogus Trademark Threat Letter

from the this-timeline-is-so-stupid dept

Another day, another crazy trademark story. As you may recall, back in December we wrote about how President Trump's personal lawyer, and former NYC mayor, Rudy Giuliani -- who considers himself a cybersecurity expert -- made an utter fool of himself. It started with him making a typo in a tweet, in which he left out a space after the period ending a sentence. The second sentence started with "In" but after a period it became ".in" which is the TLD for India. Someone then registered that domain and pointed it to a site critical of Trump. Rather than recognize he made a typo, Giuliani ridiculously tweeted that Twitter had "allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message." Except that didn't happen. Incredibly, months later, Giuliani's nonsense tweet is still up.

This resulted in people hunting through previous Giuliani tweets, and they discovered that Giuliani had made a similar typo with a similar autolink effect a few months earlier for the URL "collusion.so" specifically with this text:

#REALNEWS: Woodward says no evidence of collusion.So does Manafort’s team. Mueller can investigate endlessly and he will find no evidence. The only conspiracy,using criminal means, is the campaign to stop and then remove President Trump.

Someone astutely registered collusion.so and pointed it to Lawfare's coverage of connections between Trump and Russia. It was all a good fun internet joke thing.

So what could this possibly have to do with crazy trademark claims? Well... clothing brand Asos apparently launched a clothing line called "Collusion" around the same time as Giuliani's original tweet, and its brain-dead clueless lawyers decided that the registration of collusion.so was clearly infringement, and sent a very silly cease and desist letter. Thankfully, whoever registered the domain asked EFF to represent them in responding, and EFF certainly responded:

As you will see, it would be difficult to imagine a set of circumstances further removed from trademark infringement than our client’s registration of the collusion.so domain. The story begins with Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and current attorney to President Donald Trump. Last year, some Twitter users noticed that Mr. Giuliani was making typographical errors in his tweets in a way that inadvertently created well-formed URLs. A September 15, 2018 tweet read, in part, as follows: “#REALNEWS: Woodward says no evidence of collusion.So does Manafort’s team.”

Our client noticed that Mr. Giuliani had inadvertently tweeted the URL “collusion.so” and decided to register the domain name. As a comment on U.S. politics, our client chose to direct the URL to the Lawfare blog’s collection of articles regarding connections between President Trump and Russia. Our client has no association with the Lawfare blog.

The registration of collusion.so received some press coverage.

[....]

In your letter, you write that the COLLUSION mark is the “ultimate youth label” and explain that ASOS recently launched a clothing line under this brand. You claim that our client is “taking unfair advantage of ASOS’ reputation in the COLLUSION brand and the COLLUSION trade mark by luring customers to your website for your own gain.” These allegations are ludicrous.

Trademark infringement requires, “use in commerce [of a] copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive.” 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1)(a). Our client’s registration of the collusion.so mark for an act of sardonic political commentary is not a “use in commerce” subject to trademark law. See Koch Indus., Inc. v. Does, 2:10CV1275DAK, 2011 WL 1775765, a *7 (D. Utah May 9, 2011). Moreover, there is no possible claim of confusion regarding your client’s youth clothing line. Visitors to the collusion.so domain are directed to a website that relates to the dictionary (and contemporary political) meaning of “collusion.” See Informa Business Information, Inc. v. Privacydotlink Customer 640040 / Domain Manager, Web D.G. Ltd., WIPO Case No. D2017-1756 (denying UDRP complaint where “disputed domain name [was registered] for its generic or descriptive value and has not used it in a manner that trades off the Complainant’s trade mark rights”).

While you might not have been expected to know the entire story behind collusion.so, two facts would have been immediately apparent if your firm had performed a cursory investigation before sending its letter. First, a simple WHOIS search reveals that our client registered collusion.so on September 16, 2018, which is before your client launched the COLLUSION clothing line. As your own letter explains, ASOS launched its COLLUSION line on October 1, 2018. Second, if you had visited collusion.so you would have seen that it directs visitors to a page about the alleged political collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. From these facts, it should have been apparent that the registration of collusion.so did not in any way relate to your client’s business and was not trademark infringement.

EFF senior staff attorney Daniel Nazer has no interest in letting Asos lawyer, Stobbs, off easy either:

I note with some concern that your law firm appears to have a history of abusive trademark complaints and reverse domain hijacking. Reverse domain name hijacking means “using the [UDRP administrative process] in bad faith to attempt to deprive a registered domain-name holder of a domain name.” See Rules For Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, Rule 1 definitions.

In Virgin Enterprises Limited v. Domain Admin/This Domain is for Sale, Hugedomains.com, WIPO Case No. D2017-1961, Stobbs IP represented the complainant. The Panel found that “the Complaint was made in bad faith as an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, constituting an abuse of this administrative proceeding.” Id. The Panel further noted that “[t]he Complainant must have realized that the disputed domain name was one out of many combinations of descriptive words” that that it “cannot monopolize all combinations of dictionary words with the term “virgin.”” Id.; see also Informa Business Information, supra (Panel made finding of reverse domain name hijacking); The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge v. Kirkland Holdings LLC, WIPO Case No. D2015-1278 (Panel found “[s]ufficient grounds for a finding of abuse plainly exist”).

It appears that your firm has not learned the lesson of these cases and is continuing to make abusive trademark threats. At a minimum, your firm should conduct an investigation before sending demand letters like the one sent to our client. We urge you to be more responsible when sending trademark cease and desist letters in the future.

Not surprisingly, Asos backed down almost immediately:

Asos contacted EFF to apologize for the cease and desist letter. Asos said the letter should never have been sent and assured us that it would take no further action against our client. We welcome the apology and hope that this case serves as an example to others who might send careless or overbroad trademark threats.

This is, of course, a good end result, but the company should know better than to (a) hire a law firm known for abusing trademark law in such a manner, and (2) approve the original sending of the threat letter.

Filed Under: collusion, collusion.so, rudy giuliani, threats, trademark
Companies: asos, eff

New Acting Attorney General Part Of A Patent Scam Company Recently Shut Down By The FTC And Fined Millions

from the grifters-everywhere dept

As you've certainly heard by now, yesterday President Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and, at least for now, installed Sessions' Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker to be the acting Attorney General. So who the hell is Matthew Whitaker? Well, Eric Boehlert summed up his history succinctly on Twitter:

Fascinating. But, getting even closer to the usual stuff that we cover on Techdirt, it also appears that Whitaker played a key role in a patent promotion scam company that was recently fined millions of dollars by the FTC. And, Whitaker apparently used his former job as an Assistant US Attorney to try to intimidate an unhappy "customer" of this firm away from filing a Better Business Bureau complaint. In other words, not only is Whitaker associated with a scammy patent marketing company, he also abused his former title in an effort to create a chilling effect on someone's speech.

The Miami New Times had a big article last year about the scam that was World Patent Marketing, which (of course) was based in Florida (why are so many of these scams based in Florida?). There are a bunch of these kinds of firms out there, that prey on unsophisticated individuals who were able to patent something or (more frequently) think they have something worth patenting. In this case, the Miami New Times describes WPM's way of working:

Thousands of would-be inventors like Masti were ripped off in the scheme, the feds allege. Padded, posterior-enhancing jeans; fruit crossbred with marijuana; a urinal shield to catch splatter — each one was sure to be a best seller, the company promised inventors, if they just paid for the firm's expertise in bringing ideas to market.

In reality, the firm's illustrious board — which included big names such as time-travel scientist Ronald Mallett and Florida International University professor Aileen Marti— simply took cash without ever meeting or reviewing any pitches. Some of the supposed innovations the company green-lit already existed, so patent applications were regularly denied. And despite the many "success stories" featured on its website, virtually none of the firm's clients ever made money.

As millions poured in, the firm's tough-talking CEO, Scott J. Cooper, boasted about trips to remote islands on his yacht and lashed out in expletive-laden tirades at inventors who complained. In screeds posted online and emailed to customers, the company bragged about its security team composed of ex-Israeli special forces trained in Krav Maga and threatened critics with lawsuits — or worse.

As the article notes, the FTC has gone after a ton of similar companies over the past couple decades, but new ones keep popping up. And apparently World Patent Marketing dove in with gusto:

In the long history of invention scammers, though, experts say few exceeded Cooper at wringing so much money out of individual victims. With a unique combination of New York bluster and salesmanship — and a fighter's willingness to scrap with naysayers — Cooper charmed hopefuls into sending thousands of dollars before scaring away anyone who thought about blowing the whistle, burned inventors say.

Despite only starting in 2014, the company raked in millions. The Miami New Times article is incredibly detailed in how Cooper ran such a scam. But it also talks about how he would angrily go after dissatisfied "customers." And apparently some of that included using "advisory board member" Matthew Whitaker. The company revealed in the evidence in the case the FTC filed against the firm, including sending an email to an unhappy customer "A Rudsky" who had threatened to report WPM to the Better Business Bureau. It appears that Cooper passed on this threat to Whitaker, who sent the following email in August of 2015:

If you can't see that, it says the following ("Scott" is Scott Cooper, who was the CEO/founder of World Patent Marketing):

Mr. Rudsky:

Scott forwarded me your emails and I am concerned about what you are trying to communicate to Scott Cooper and WPM.

I am a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa and I also serve on World Patent Marketing's Advisory Board.

Your emails and messages from today seem to be an apparent attempt at possible blackmail or extortion. You also mentioned filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and to smear World Patent Marketing's reputation online. I am assuming you understand that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you if that is in fact what you and your "group" are doing.

I am familiar with your background and your history with Scott. Understand that we take threats like this seriously. Perhaps you can email me and specifically explain to me exactly what your intentions are with regards to World Patent Marketing so I can respond accordingly.
I can be reached at this email address.

Please conduct yourself accordingly.

Why is it that dubious threat letters from sketchy lawyers always seem to end with some variation on "govern yourself accordingly"?

Anyway, in March of 2017, the FTC filed a complaint concerning Cooper and World Patent Marketing. In May of this year, the case was closed out with the court granting a permanent injunction and monetary judgment against Cooper and World Patent Marketing. The court ordered a $26 million payment from the defendants, but also required Cooper specifically to hand over nearly $1 million from the sale of his $3.5 million home, and the rest of the judgment was suspended. There are a bunch of other stipulations in the order, requiring Cooper to accurately submit details of his business activities for many years into the future, and he is "permanently restrained and enjoined from advertising, marketing, promoting or offering for sale, or assisting in the advertising, marketing, promoting or offering for sale of any Invention Promotion Service."

Whitaker, it seems, was a bit player in this invention promotion scheme, but clearly was closely enough involved that he acted as a legal threat bully in at least that one case. That should certainly raise significant questions about how just a couple years later that same guy is suddenly the country's acting Attorney General.

Filed Under: attorney general, free speech, ftc, intimidation, matthew whitaker, patent marketing, patent promotion, patents, scam, scott cooper, threats
Companies: world patent marketing

Breitbart Snowflakes Threaten To Sue People Who Have Asked Advertisers To Stop Advertising On Breitbart

from the free-speech-hypocrites dept

Earlier this year, we wrote a story about the boutique law firm Clare Locke that appeared to specialize in intimidating news orgs with legal threats to try to get them to kill stories. One of the firm's partner, Elizabeth Locke, flat out says that she thinks there's too much press freedom:

"... the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of freedom of the press."

As we pointed out in that article, if you're a journalist hiring such a firm -- and a bunch of the #MeToo journalists have done so -- to try to stifle stories from other publications, it would suggest you're an incredible hypocrite. Journalists thrive on the First Amendment. If you're a journalist threatening to stifle others' free speech, you're a hypocrite.

Enter Breitbart. Because, of course it would be Breitbart. According to a Daily Beast article, Breitbart has hired Clare Locke to threaten a group of people who have been advocating for advertisers to drop their ads from Breitbart. I should say up front, that I think all of these attempts to push advertisers to drop ads is actually pretty silly. It's mostly symbolic and rarely has a real economic impact. It's just a silly game of tit for tat.

But, according to the letter written by Clare Locke's other partner, Thomas Clare, asking advertisers to stop advertising could be "unfair, fraudulent and deceptive." From the letter:

I write on behalf of my client, Breitbart News Network, LLC. As you of course know, Breitbart has been the target of a months-long smear campaign by the online activist group “Sleeping Giants.” It has recently been revealed that you are a founder and leader of this group. My client is considering potential legal action against you, and we therefore demand that you preserve and retain certain documents in your possession that may be relevant to potential civil claims.

These include potential claims concerning unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices intended to cause Breitbart economic harm. We believe that Sleeping Giants has sought to deceive the public and, in particular, purchasers of online advertising, by making false, deceptive, and disparaging claims about Breitbart and the news content it publishes — including, among other things, accusing Breitbart of distributing “anti-Semitic” propaganda, of promoting “white supremacy,” and of being a “neo-Nazi propaganda” website. Sleeping Giants has directed these and similar deceptive and misleading statements to companies that purportedly purchase advertisements appearing on Breitbart’s website — and has encouraged its members and others to do the same — in an effort to drive advertising revenue away from Breitbart, and to solicit donations and sell Sleeping Giants’ branded merchandise.

The letter goes on to angrily deny that it is any of those things (while also plugging the fact that the White House Chief of Staff reads it). It then goes on to concoct quite a fascinating conspiracy theory, arguing that "Sleeping Giants" is really designed for "commercial interests" because many of its founders apparently work in the ad tech business. How that creates any commercial advantage isn't exactly clear at all. It just implies that this somehow is a fraudulent practice.

Although, as stated above, the group and its organizers have long attempted to conduct these tortious actions behind a veil of anonymity, a recently-published article identified you, Matt Rivitz, as the founder of Sleeping Giants and the acknowledged proprietor of its social media accounts. That same article noted that you have long worked in online marketing and advertising. Notably, after your identity was involuntarily disclosed through investigative reporting, you claimed that you hid your identity and role with Sleeping Giants as an act of humility in order to “keep this about the mission rather than the individuals involved.” But your past, conflicting explanations for hiding your identity tell a different story. For example, in January 2017, an individual identified only as a Sleeping Giants “founder” — who cited biographical details specific to you — told the New York Times that Sleeping Giants was conducting its campaign targeting Breitbart’s advertisers anonymously because “some members of the group work in the digital-media industry.” Similarly, in March 2018, a Sleeping Giants “spokesman” acknowledged to GQ that “the people behind Sleeping Giants” elected to remain anonymous because they “work in marketing-related fields” and their targeting of online advertisers “might be perceived as creating some kind of conflict of interest.” These frank admissions, made at a time when you and your supporters in the ad tech world expected their identities to remain a secret, are extremely revealing and hint at a hidden and improper commercial motivation behind Sleeping Giants’ deceptive practices targeting Breitbart. It appears that the reason you and your backers did not want their identities known was because it would have revealed their shared economic interests and deceptive practices.

These unfair, fraudulent, and deceptive practices may give rise to civil liability both for you and the members of the online advertising and ad tech worlds that you coordinated with. These potential claims include, but certainly are not limited to, claims relating to violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (Business and Professions Code Sections 17200, et seq.), fraud, violation of the Lanham Act, tortious interference with contract, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly the "shared economic interests" are in getting companies to stop advertising on a site? It seems that a much more logical (and obvious) explanation for why the Sleeping Giants folks wanted to remain anonymous was because working for an ad tech company while supporting advertising boycotts actually goes against their economic interests, and might make their own employers kinda pissed off. But, this letter assumes the exact opposite, without any actual explanation.

It then asks Rivitz to preserve all sorts of stuff, including communications with an insanely long list of individuals, organizations and companies -- including a bunch of Breitbart critics.

This seems like a pretty blatant intimidation tactic. And while the letter, hilariously, claims that this threat is really "about Sleeping Giants’ desire to stifle speech that does not adhere to its narrow liberal politics," it's hard to see how you can claim that when the whole point of the letter appears to be to stifle the speech of people asking for advertising boycotts.

And, of course, asking for advertising boycotts is pretty common on both sides of the traditional political divide. In fact, it's not difficult at all to find a whole host of Breitbart articles happily reporting on campaigns to pull ads from news orgs deemed "liberal." Separately, I'll note that it's fascinating to see a subtle shift in tone when Breitbart reports on similar campaigns targeted at Breitbart allies. Those stories suddenly talk about "liberal outrage," "liberal fascism," and "corporate warfare attacks from the left." Oddly, those earlier stories about removing ads from CNN, MSNBC, TBS and NBC don't have any of that kind of language. Indeed, they seem to focus on whatever "outrageous" thing done on those stations that lead to pressure to remove ads. Must be a coincidence, huh?

So, to be clear: ad boycotts are overrated, but if people want to do them, it is their First Amendment protected speech to call for such boycotts, no matter what the reason, no matter what their politics and no matter how silly. Threatening those who exercise their First Amendment speech in such a way with a lawsuit, however, is not supporting free speech. It is bullying censorial intimidation tactics, and Breitbart should be ashamed (if such a thing were possible). The site regularly likes to whine about liberals and universities stifling free speech, but apparently has no problem at all trying to stifle the speech of people who ask its own advertisers to stop advertising on the platform.

Either way, all this red team, blue team bullshit is getting pretty annoying. Silly people who identify as either left or right wing (which is a stupid designation anyway) will do stupid things. And silly people on the other side will generalize and stereotype based on those things, while doing the exact same things themselves. But, seriously, stop freaking out about one "side" doing the exact same thing your side is doing and then coming up with all sorts of silly rationalizations for why it's okay when your side does it, but a horrific violation of the law when the other side does it.

Filed Under: advertising, boycotts, chilling effects, first amendment, free speech, intimidation, sleeping giants, threats
Companies: breitbart, clare locke

FOSTA Provides Another Tool For Silencing People You Dislike

from the liability-for-censorship dept

For many years, we've discussed all the different ways that putting liability on intermediaries and internet platforms leads to greater censorship. The liability alone creates strong incentive to shut down speech rather than risk the potential of lawsuits and huge payments. The most obvious example of this for years has been the DMCA process, where the takedown process is quite frequently used for censorship purposes. Indeed, there are many cases where people seem to assume that they can (and should) use the DMCA to take down any content they dislike, whether or not it has anything to do with copyright at all.

This is a big part of the reason why we were so concerned with FOSTA. While the law is officially supposed to be about "sex trafficking" and "prostitution" the bill actually does absolutely nothing to help victims or go after actual traffickers. Instead, it pins massive liability (including criminal liability) on platforms if they're used for trafficking or prostitution. Given that, it now becomes much easier to take down certain content or close certain accounts by merely suggesting that they are involved in trafficking or prostitution.

Case in point: Engadget recently had a story talking about how PayPal (and to a lesser extent, Patreon) appeared to be cutting off the accounts of various ASMR YouTubers. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a condition in which people who hear certain noises -- often whispering or soft scratching -- tend to experience a sort of "tingling" sensation. It's been talked about for years, and a bunch of YouTubers have built up followings making ASMR recordings. Earlier this year, we wrote about China banning some ASMR videos as "pornography." However, most ASMR videos are not sexual or pornographic in any way.

The Engadget article highlights how PayPal began banning a bunch of ASMR video creators, apparently in response to those creators being targeted on 8chan. The article suggests that it's pure trolling on the part of the 8chan users, but reading through the thread there, it's slightly more complicated (though, no less stupid). Many of the posts are misogynistic attacks on the women, and many claim that they're using ASMR as a front to sell "sexual content" and so some of them are arguing that they're really just trying to enforce the terms of service on PayPal and Patreon.

But there's something else -- some of the 8chan users claim that people in the ASMR community have been using the DMCA to silence critics as well, so to them, reporting the ASMR video creators is just a way of fighting back.

As is often the case, all of the motives here are suspect, and none of the narrators are particularly reliable. But what is clear is that intermediary liability laws become a weapon in online wars to try to silence people for whatever reason. The 8channers claim that the ASMR folks are sending bogus DMCA notices, which leads to (accurate or not) reports of ASMR accounts offering up sexual content, and platforms like PayPal and Patreon are then in a position where they're strongly compelled to just take those accounts down, rather than face any potential liability at all from FOSTA (or the DMCA).

Just sorting out who did what to whom in this situation is a total mess (I've wasted an afternoon reading all sorts of things on it, and it's next to impossible to get an accurate picture of what's really going on). But, it has created a world where when someone pisses you off online -- for good or bad reasons -- you can resort to claims that would place liability on the platforms if they don't cut off the users. And thus, people get cut off. No platform has the resources (or desire) to adjudicate what's really going on here at all... and thus, we just end up with widespread censorship.

This is likely to continue and expand, especially as intermediary liability protections are chipped away at on a grand scale. If you give people tools to censor, they will be abused, and those pushing to cut back on intermediary liability continue to play down the risk of widespread censorship and (especially) attacks on speech they actually support. But this kind of thing happens all the time, and punching giant holes in CDA 230 and similar laws will only make the issue much, much worse.

Filed Under: 4chan, asmr, cda 230, copyright, dmca, fosta, free speech, intermediary liability, takedowns, threats, trolls
Companies: patreon, paypal, youtube

Wondering How Suburban Express Is Doing In Lawsuit Brought By Illinois Attorney General? Really Fucking Bad!

from the like-super,-super-bad dept

Back in May, we wrote about Suburban Express, the comically awful bussing company that works the University of Illinois-Champaign to Chicago circuit and is owned by Dennis Toeppen, being sued by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Why it was sued by the state will require you going through the backlinks above, but can more succinctly be expressed in the following math equation:

(legal threats against a redditor for negative reviews) x 2 +(doxxing complaining customers) + (lawsuits filed against customers for complaining) - (rescinding those lawsuits) + (refiling those same lawsuits again) + (Toeppen being arrested for harassing his critics) + (filing more lawsuits) x (sending out a racist email advertisement promising that you won't see Chinese people on its busses) = well, hello there, federal court

Okay, fine, so the equation wasn't all that succinct. Still, the answer to why Madigan sued is essentially because Surburban Express likely violated all kinds of laws in doing the above. Madigan's suit alleged a dizzying array of violations of civil rights and consumer protection laws, as well as Illinois law on civil rights. Toeppen stands accused of harassment of customers for leaving the company negative reviews, arbitrary refusal of service based on not liking customers for a variety of reasons including racial reasons, and having internal and external communications, such as the advertisement that ridicules Asians and Jews, because every bigot entree basically just comes with a Jewish piece of parsley. In all, Madigan included 182 pages of exhibits backing up her accusations.

So, how's it going?

Well, pretty fucking bad for Toeppen and Suburban Express, it turns out. Ken White lays out a summary of what's occurred with the suit thus far.

It's not looking promising for Toeppen or Suburban Express in court. They agreed to a Temporary Restraining Order barring them from publishing the personal identifying information of customers, required them to take down the personal identifying information they already published, revise their lawsuits to redact gratuitously filed personal identifying information, and stop retaliating against customers for online reviews. Toeppen and Suburban Express agreed to have that order extended a few times, and now the AG wants to make it into a more long-term injunction. Meanwhile the attorney for Suburban Express and Toeppen wants to quit, citing strategic disputes and non-payment. Toeppen is falling back on the game-winning strategy of semi-coherent attacks on the media.

That last bit takes the form of a bizarre attack on The News Gazette. After reporting on the case, the News Gazette received a brief and vague bit of pushback directly from Toeppen as to its reporting about Toeppen's lawyer looking to exit the case. As per usual with Toeppen, the interaction was long on bombast and short on anything worthwhile.

After this article was published, Toeppen emailed The News-Gazette to criticize its reporting.

"Don't try to report on things you do not understand and are unwilling to research," he wrote. "Your reporting on this matter has been idiotic in the extreme."

A News-Gazette email asking for clarification bounced back with an error saying the sender's email address had been rejected.

"You're wrong, but I won't explain how, and I'll block your email address right after I send this!" is about as useless an interaction as I can think of. None of that changes the News Gazette's reporting about Toeppen's attorney seeking to no longer represent Suburban Express over both strategic issues and a lack of payment from Toeppen, not to mention that Suburban Express' insurance company is asking the court to declare that it doesn't have to pay for the lawsuit, essentially because the policy doesn't cover Toeppen being an asshole.

The Hartford has denied coverage, Long said, and Manufacturers Alliance Insurance Company denied coverage and filed a lawsuit against Toeppen and Allerton Charter Coach, which operates as a contractor for Suburban Express.

It's seeking a decision from the court on whether it correctly denied coverage, arguing that policies Allerton and Toeppen have exclude coverage when the damages result from intentional misconduct, as Madigan's lawsuit alleges.

Now, look, I know it might seem like I'm actively rooting against Toeppen and Suburban Express and for Madigan to at the very least make an example of them, but it only looks that way because it's absolutely true and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. The level of harassment and vitriol Toeppen has displayed, all because people don't want him to run his business as though this was Montgomery circa 1955.

Filed Under: critics, dennis toeppen, harassment, illinois, lisa madigan, reviews, threats
Companies: suburban express

FlightSimLabs Installs More Questionable Stuff On Users' Machines, Then Threatens Reddit

from the bumpy-landing dept

Hopefully you will recall FlightSimLabs, the company that makes custom add-ons for computer flight simulation software. FSL made it onto our pages after a Reddit user noticed that every installation of FSL software, including that of a legitimate purchase, installed a file named "test.exe" which was not just a form of DRM, but which also serves as a Chrome password dumping tool, extracting user names and passwords from people's web browsers. Whatever the fuzzy line between DRM software and malware, FLS's installation of its text.exe file clearly leapt over that line with a flourish. The backlash in the Reddit communities and elsewhere was swift and severe, leading Lefteris Kalamaras, who runs FSL, to release the following statement.

We have already replaced the installer in question and can only promise you that we will do everything in our power to rectify the issue with those who feel offended, as well as never use any such heavy-handed approach in the future. Once again, we humbly apologize!

And that really, really should have been the end of it. If nothing else, the backlash from the community should have informed FSL as to the precise tolerance its customers had for this type of nonsense, which is to say zero. Amazingly, despite Kalamaras' promise, it appears FSL tried to give this DRM thing another try, and somehow managed to make itself look even shittier in the process.

Just before the weekend, Reddit user /u/walkday reported finding something unusual in his A320X module, the same module that caused the earlier controversy.

“The latest installer of FSLabs’ A320X puts two cmdhost.exe files under ‘system32\’ and ‘SysWOW64\’ of my Windows directory. Despite the name, they don’t open a command-line window,” he reported. “They’re a part of the authentication because, if you remove them, the A320X won’t get loaded. Does someone here know more about cmdhost.exe? Why does FSLabs give them such a deceptive name and put them in the system folders? I hate them for polluting my system folder unless, of course, it is a dll used by different applications.”

If you don't have a technical background at all, essentially FSL attempted to deliver DRM again onto users' machines, but named the files to mimic a common Windows background file that users see all the time. It's actually quite common for a user opening Task Manager to see several instances of cmdhost.exe running at once. In other words, it's the kind of thing nearly everyone would scroll past, assuming its legit.

As several people on Reddit have pointed out, this sort of misleading naming of software services is a hallmark of malware.

“Hiding something named to resemble Window’s “Console Window Host” process in system folders is a huge red flag,” one user wrote.

“It’s a malware tactic used to deceive users into thinking the executable is a part of the OS, thus being trusted and not deleted. Really dodgy tactic, don’t trust it and don’t trust them,” opined another.

Why FSL seems to get all of its best ideas from the realm of malware is an open question. The company put out a statement explaining that the file is a part of its product activation software and that the file had been vetted by every major antivirus maker out there. Both appear to be true, which doesn't even begin to explain why FSL, having had its reputation so thoroughly tarnished recently, thought pulling this name convention trick with its DRM was a good idea. Reddit users remained on the warpath, causing FSL to really torpedo its reputation even further.

In private messages to the moderators of the /r/flightsim sub-Reddit, FSLabs’ Marketing and PR Manager Simon Kelsey suggested that the mods should do something about the thread in question or face possible legal action.

“Just a gentle reminder of Reddit’s obligations as a publisher in order to ensure that any libelous content is taken down as soon as you become aware of it,” Kelsey wrote.

Noting that FSLabs welcomes “robust fair comment and opinion”, Kelsey gave the following advice.

“The ‘cmdhost.exe’ file in question is an entirely above board part of our anti-piracy protection and has been submitted to numerous anti-virus providers in order to verify that it poses no threat. Therefore, ANY suggestion that current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous."

The letter concluded with the suggestion of how much FSL would just hate to have to get their lawyers involved if the Reddit moderators left the critical posts up. The mods refused to comply, leading to FSL sending another message to the moderators accusing the critical posts of being defamatory and, if not cleaned up, the company would have "no choice" but to send in the lawyers.

Just to be clear, the legal threats here are nonsense. Contrary to the claims in the message, Reddit is not under any "obligation as a publisher" to take down such content, thanks to CDA 230. Oh, and all of that presumes that the original content is, indeed, libelous. Which it is not.

The mods again refused, while also accusing FSL of trying to game Reddit's voting system to push down critical posts.

“While what you do on your forum is certainly your prerogative, your rules do not extend to Reddit nor the r/flightsim subreddit. Removing content you disagree with is simply not within our purview.”

The letter, which is worth reading in full, refutes Kelsey’s claims and also suggests that critics of FSLabs may have been subjected to Reddit vote manipulation and coordinated efforts to discredit them.

Once again, responding to internet posts and comments a company doesn't like by trying to censor them, particularly after going through a reputational gauntlet previously, might just be about as dumb as it gets. Between the DRM, the shady installation of software, and the anti-consumer behavior to cover it all up, one wonders what flight simulator mod could possibly be worth engaging with FlightSimLabs ever again.

Filed Under: censorship, defamation, drm, flight sims, free speech, intermediary liability, malware, threats
Companies: flightsimlabs, reddit