Yes, China can in fact ban 7,000 articles on mainland China; however, that doesn't stop someone from compiling a list of the 7,000 articles the Chinese government has decided to ban (comparing Chinese vs. Non-Blocked versions of the site). This then draws attention to the articles they don't want the people to know about, making political dissidents even more likely to read them.
Why can't there be an Anti-SLAPP-style measure for these types of abusive lawsuits?
If the defending party can prove that there is a good chance that this lawsuit has no merit and is done only as a delay tactic/nuisance suit, the proposed rule change is not stopped from going into effect AND if the party bringing the lawsuit fails to win, automatic attorney fees for the defending party are paid along with any lost income due to the delay.
Could use this for retaliatory lawsuits too if its verbiage was expanded a little.
But I guess I was talking about it in the rule-of-unintended-consequences direction, not 'narrowly tailoring' to create criminals because arrests=justifying my existence. But yes, I totally get where you are going with this.
Statement 1: "Next time I see you, Tim, I'm going to kill you."
First off, this is a statement you can hear in a million different places and it has completely different meanings and connotations:
Place #1: Facebook - In context, angry dude who is known to be unstable. Ok, totally prosecutable and fine, but I'd argue this could already be prosecutable; no changes needed.
Place #2: Facebook - In context, sister comes home and posts a picture of her destroyed room. No history of physical abuse (other than typical sibling stuff). - You want to prosecute this???
Place #3: Any video game ever - So I post that in Overwatch to a player on the other side. Discussing the fact that I will murder his face off the minute I see him... in game. -- You want to prosecute this???
Place #4: Posting on a site like this to make a point. - Well, it is specific (to Tim) and it is a threat, even though context (this post) obviously makes it benign and harmless. - You want to prosecute this???
This is why you need to narrowly tailor speech. Otherwise you make many people criminals for benign comments.
I think that too many times people forget that digital is not the same as physical analogs.
If this data was held in a safe, and only the purchaser of the safe had the key, this would be the government asking Blackberry to break into another person's safe just because they want them to.
Blackberry has agreed to help them break into the safe. They hire a team of experts that could create a new key. The safe is opened, and everyone is happy.
...except this is a digital world instead. That 'experts' didn't just crack the one safe they were trying to get in; they literally cracked every safe Blackberry has ever made! With just a few kilobytes of data, this 'key creator' code can be stolen and used against any safe in existence.
In the world of computer science, this 'key creator' is quite literally an encryption vulnerability that now has been created and documented. It undermines the credibility of all encryption from Blackberry. So much for the 'more secure than Apple' statement after this occurs, because you are holding on to a vulnerability you refuse to patch.
Great job quite literally slitting your own throat, Blackberry. Because that is exactly what you signed up for.
Charter has 30 million customers. Dude made $98.6 million in a year...
That is quite literally $3 dollars PER CUSTOMER just for this dude's salary! This is not the entire support staff keeping the internet working, the customer support staff, the salesmen... That is $3 for one guy...
Charter, your next below-the-line-fee can be a $0.25 CEO tax... now THAT is transparecy!
You have to admit... there is something ingenious about getting people to pay $10 more for literally nothing. I mean... for $10 you could buy a subscription to Netflix, which gives you access to thousands of hours of content. Verizon is literally giving you nothing; just removes an arbitrary block that they put on in the first place.
Yup... we don't need no stinkin' net neutrality rules... #verizonknowsbest
But don't worry, if you use Verizon's GO90 streaming service, I bet that bandwidth restriction would be exempt... It is already 'included in the price'
So, I hope that if SESTA passes (I don't want it to, obviously), that ICE does exactly this. I think with such a broad reading, this would immediately invite lawsuits on First Amendment grounds. At that point it wouldn't be 'narrowly tailored' and the bill will be ruled unconstitutional.
The question would be whether or not I would have standing if I was censored by one of these platforms if they used SESTA as an excuse for censoring...
I agree with your argument that they could do this. I just hope they follow through and try it should that awful law actually be passed.
I was thinking about this exact same problem with Facebook and Twitter's 'Trolls-for-Hire' issue (namely the Russian-Government backed kind). Technically they aren't breaking any rules or laws, but they are 'fake' accounts spreading misinformation in a nonconstructive way; so still 'bad actors' in a community.
Blocking them just sends them a sign that you are on to them. All that does is make them create yet another new anonymous account and start spouting off again and again and again. Sounds like the same solution that MPAA and RIAA are employing with copyright censorship and we all know how well that is going....
I was pondering the idea of creating 'echo chambers' that members of a given vitriolic nature are able to interact in their own little 'walled garden' if you will. Your comments will show up in your feed, your posts aren't taken down... just they might not be seen on someone else's account.
Who cares what you spout when we identify you as a troublemaker, (e.g. troll/racist/abuser) when only you can see it. If you aren't in a community that you can correct the behavior, the silent treatment might be a great way to keep the community whole. With things like Facebook and Twitter being so vast that you can't possibly see every possible message someone posts, they already make decisions on what you want to see. They can just weight these troll accounts to the bottom and no one would be the wiser.
For too long; us techies have had to listen to this drivel come out of the mouths of Rosenstein & Co. I think it is high time we demand from them a working copy of their so-called 'responsible encryption'. Show me one real life example of this working and secure.
Oh wait... it doesn't exist? Hmmm... fancy that.
Side Note: Just today there was another example of RSA encryption falling apart on public key generation since 2012 that opened up vulnerabilities. Some of the most talented people in the world are working on this stuff and they still aren't perfect 100% of the time when guarding one door. Good luck guarding a second (or 3rd, 4th, and 5th once other countries demand the same).
Unfortunately, platforms are the sexy, new thing that everyone loves. Close down the hatches and let a single company create a 'platform'.
Email doesn't have this problem because it is a Protocol. Twitter has the problem because it is a platform. BitTorrent doesn't censor applications, because it is a protocol. The Apple App Store has a problem because it is a platform.
So the more we feed into Platform culture, the more you will see people putting arbitrary control over how people use it. Not necessarily good or bad; it is their right as the platform curator, but we just need to understand curators will censor at their whims because reasons.
"The government need not require the use of a particular chip or algorithm... " --- Is he really going there? Did he literally just allude to the Clipper chip of the 1990's?
Not a great allusion to bring up when you are talking about adding a backdoor into security!
Anyone stop to think that logic should be applied to the FISA court once this gets a win? Kind of hard to know the government's justification for things when it is a SECRET court with secret interpretations of the law...
Re: Assertions so silly call for quote-and-contradict:
"@ having groups like this at the forefront -- That's some nice ad hom ya made up there. It's what sites "like this" use instead of reason."
If you have read any SESTA coverage, his point has been made pretty loud and clear.
Also, knowing who is backing things helps give context. For example... when the NSA was found pushing specific security standards to RSA AND THEN PAYING THEM TO MAKE A DEFAULT.... that is a pretty big neon sign of 'hey... this is probably a bad idea'. Too bad it took Snowden's leaks to expose that.
"@ of destructive, counterproductive bills like SESTA -- It's not."
I'm not sure how forcing every website (including this one) to monitor their site for 'possible' sex trafficking is not destructive to the economy and small business. It is, by definition counterproductive. Remember, Backpage and Craigslist do not have any 'adult' ads on their platform anymore and... newsflash... there is still sex trafficking...
"@ raises some serious questions about what really are the goals of SESTA. -- No, it doesn't. All the serious questions involve why mega-corporations are allowed to openly operate past the margins of civil society"
Actually, I didn't even think about the possibility to use this to curtail the adult entertainment business, but it does have some pretty big ramifications. There isn't much of a logical leap between 'sex trafficking', the act of a person being forced into a sexual act by another, and 'sex trafficking' saying that the man/woman in the film was doing it against their will which means SESTA would apply... Which, wow... talk about impossible to police. See a pornographic image on the internet? Was that person being FORCED to take that picture? Probably better use SESTA to shut it down... just in case....
That is playing into what NCSE sees as a 'wedge'. They don't care about 'freedoms' or 'rights'... just what they think is right.... so they can be free from the 'evils' of alternative viewpoints.
FYI: you can dissent on here and not be a jerk. I don't agree with everything on the authors say and will make my position heard in a coherent and logical way.
"Because if a week or so, often less, isn't enough, what will be?"
Tim, the Tech-Savvy Honorable-And-Infallible Ms. Theresa May has already answered your question... 2 hours...
sheesh... get with the program. Everyone knows that 2 hours of hate speech of a single voice on the internet is more than the sensitive European public can stomach.
Register as Libertarian. I did it in my state this year given the absolutely ridiculous choices we had. Don't regret my vote one bit. Only way for us to make a difference is start to flock from their base and show them they have an up-and-coming party that will pose a real threat. I think it has a chance to become something if the GOP keeps up their racist and hate-mongering platform. Millenials won't stand for it...
It would be nice to know how many laws could be used to stop 'bad actors on the internet' that aren't being used. I'm positive that this 'fix' won't do anything to help those in need.
If politicrats want to do something, why not make a 'feel-good' law that says 'companies that suspect sex trafficking ads have been posted should (key word there) notify law enforcement if they become aware of it'. This is a simple, non-binding way to 'do something' without actually harming a large swath of businesses over hysterical moral outrage.
With SESTA, all they are doing is removing it and NOT involving police, because liability (don't need another SJW Kamala Harris looking for political gain to put you in their crosshairs), so... i'm not sure how this is supposed to help anyone involved...
T-Mobile is starting to add 'bloat' even before the merger.
So I noticed that T-Mobile was offering Netflix for 'free'. I use T-Mobile. I use Netflix. If I could save myself $10, sure, why not sign up for the 'free' thing. It was the same plan I had... until I checked their website. I noticed their T-Mobile One plan, which I am on, is now $20 more expensive than what I am paying (for the exact same plan signed up for 6 months ago)... but it includes Netflix now...
I'm not a math whiz, but I'm pretty sure a $20 price hike and giving me a $10 video streaming option isn't free...
The irony is not lost on me at this suggesting this here... but... how about these STM using the mechanism that is already in place if they care so much? See an article you own and don't want on the site? Request a take down. Use the tools that are already on the books instead of whining and threatening nuisance lawsuits.
But we all know that they won't do it because they know they would lose the PR backlash that would ensue and do more damage if it is picked up by the mainstream press. I don't think they could spin this to a positive if they tried:
STM: You can't publish your paper on ResearchGate Scientist: But I wrote it. STM: But I own it.
On the post: Top Academic Publisher Kowtows To China: Censors Thousands Of Papers, Denies It Is Censorship
Chinese Streisand Effect?
On the post: AT&T Backs Off Nuisance Lawsuit Intended To Hamstring Broadband Competitors Like Google Fiber
Anti-SLAPP for Nuisance Suits?
If the defending party can prove that there is a good chance that this lawsuit has no merit and is done only as a delay tactic/nuisance suit, the proposed rule change is not stopped from going into effect AND if the party bringing the lawsuit fails to win, automatic attorney fees for the defending party are paid along with any lost income due to the delay.
Could use this for retaliatory lawsuits too if its verbiage was expanded a little.
On the post: Florida Legislator Thinks First Amendment Should Be Trimmed Back A Bit To Deal With Social Media Threats
Re: Re: Couple of questions about the law
But I guess I was talking about it in the rule-of-unintended-consequences direction, not 'narrowly tailoring' to create criminals because arrests=justifying my existence. But yes, I totally get where you are going with this.
On the post: Florida Legislator Thinks First Amendment Should Be Trimmed Back A Bit To Deal With Social Media Threats
Couple of questions about the law
"Next time I see you, Tim, I'm going to kill you."
First off, this is a statement you can hear in a million different places and it has completely different meanings and connotations:
Place #1: Facebook - In context, angry dude who is known to be unstable. Ok, totally prosecutable and fine, but I'd argue this could already be prosecutable; no changes needed.
Place #2: Facebook - In context, sister comes home and posts a picture of her destroyed room. No history of physical abuse (other than typical sibling stuff). - You want to prosecute this???
Place #3: Any video game ever - So I post that in Overwatch to a player on the other side. Discussing the fact that I will murder his face off the minute I see him... in game. -- You want to prosecute this???
Place #4: Posting on a site like this to make a point. - Well, it is specific (to Tim) and it is a threat, even though context (this post) obviously makes it benign and harmless. - You want to prosecute this???
This is why you need to narrowly tailor speech. Otherwise you make many people criminals for benign comments.
On the post: BlackBerry CEO Promises To Try To Break Customers' Encryption If The US Gov't Asks Him To
Physical Analogs
If this data was held in a safe, and only the purchaser of the safe had the key, this would be the government asking Blackberry to break into another person's safe just because they want them to.
Blackberry has agreed to help them break into the safe. They hire a team of experts that could create a new key. The safe is opened, and everyone is happy.
...except this is a digital world instead. That 'experts' didn't just crack the one safe they were trying to get in; they literally cracked every safe Blackberry has ever made! With just a few kilobytes of data, this 'key creator' code can be stolen and used against any safe in existence.
In the world of computer science, this 'key creator' is quite literally an encryption vulnerability that now has been created and documented. It undermines the credibility of all encryption from Blackberry. So much for the 'more secure than Apple' statement after this occurs, because you are holding on to a vulnerability you refuse to patch.
Great job quite literally slitting your own throat, Blackberry. Because that is exactly what you signed up for.
On the post: Charter CEO Tries To Blame Netflix Password 'Piracy' For Company's Failure To Adapt To Cord Cutting
Re: Re: Has someone done the math on this?!
On the post: Charter CEO Tries To Blame Netflix Password 'Piracy' For Company's Failure To Adapt To Cord Cutting
Has someone done the math on this?!
Charter has 30 million customers. Dude made $98.6 million in a year... That is quite literally $3 dollars PER CUSTOMER just for this dude's salary! This is not the entire support staff keeping the internet working, the customer support staff, the salesmen... That is $3 for one guy... Charter, your next below-the-line-fee can be a $0.25 CEO tax... now THAT is transparecy!
On the post: Verizon Will Graciously Now Let You Avoid Video Throttling For An Additional $10 Per Month
Hats off... more money for nothing
Yup... we don't need no stinkin' net neutrality rules... #verizonknowsbest
But don't worry, if you use Verizon's GO90 streaming service, I bet that bandwidth restriction would be exempt... It is already 'included in the price'
On the post: Beyond ICE In Oakland: How SESTA Threatens To Chill Any Online Discussion About Immigration
I hope it happens... if SESTA passes.
So, I hope that if SESTA passes (I don't want it to, obviously), that ICE does exactly this. I think with such a broad reading, this would immediately invite lawsuits on First Amendment grounds. At that point it wouldn't be 'narrowly tailored' and the bill will be ruled unconstitutional.
The question would be whether or not I would have standing if I was censored by one of these platforms if they used SESTA as an excuse for censoring...
I agree with your argument that they could do this. I just hope they follow through and try it should that awful law actually be passed.
On the post: Incentivizing Better Speech, Rather Than Censoring 'Bad' Speech
Blocking them just sends them a sign that you are on to them. All that does is make them create yet another new anonymous account and start spouting off again and again and again. Sounds like the same solution that MPAA and RIAA are employing with copyright censorship and we all know how well that is going....
I was pondering the idea of creating 'echo chambers' that members of a given vitriolic nature are able to interact in their own little 'walled garden' if you will. Your comments will show up in your feed, your posts aren't taken down... just they might not be seen on someone else's account.
Who cares what you spout when we identify you as a troublemaker, (e.g. troll/racist/abuser) when only you can see it. If you aren't in a community that you can correct the behavior, the silent treatment might be a great way to keep the community whole. With things like Facebook and Twitter being so vast that you can't possibly see every possible message someone posts, they already make decisions on what you want to see. They can just weight these troll accounts to the bottom and no one would be the wiser.
On the post: DOJ Continues Its Push For Encryption Backdoors With Even Worse Arguments
Can someone give me an example???
Oh wait... it doesn't exist? Hmmm... fancy that.
Side Note: Just today there was another example of RSA encryption falling apart on public key generation since 2012 that opened up vulnerabilities. Some of the most talented people in the world are working on this stuff and they still aren't perfect 100% of the time when guarding one door. Good luck guarding a second (or 3rd, 4th, and 5th once other countries demand the same).
On the post: Twitter Temporarily Blocks Campaign Ad... Getting It Much More Attention
Welcome to Platforms over Protocols
Email doesn't have this problem because it is a Protocol. Twitter has the problem because it is a platform. BitTorrent doesn't censor applications, because it is a protocol. The Apple App Store has a problem because it is a platform.
So the more we feed into Platform culture, the more you will see people putting arbitrary control over how people use it. Not necessarily good or bad; it is their right as the platform curator, but we just need to understand curators will censor at their whims because reasons.
On the post: Deputy AG Pitches New Form Of Backdoor: 'Responsible Encryption'
Responsible Encryption is REAL encryption.
Not a great allusion to bring up when you are talking about adding a backdoor into security!
Side Note: TD Staff, I expect a new T-shirt!
On the post: Members Of Congress: Court Was Wrong To Say That Posting The Law Is Copyright Infringement
FISA Courts Anyone??
On the post: Campaigners For SESTA See It As A First Step To Stomping Out Porn
Re: Assertions so silly call for quote-and-contradict:
If you have read any SESTA coverage, his point has been made pretty loud and clear.
Also, knowing who is backing things helps give context. For example... when the NSA was found pushing specific security standards to RSA AND THEN PAYING THEM TO MAKE A DEFAULT.... that is a pretty big neon sign of 'hey... this is probably a bad idea'. Too bad it took Snowden's leaks to expose that.
"@ of destructive, counterproductive bills like SESTA -- It's not."
I'm not sure how forcing every website (including this one) to monitor their site for 'possible' sex trafficking is not destructive to the economy and small business. It is, by definition counterproductive. Remember, Backpage and Craigslist do not have any 'adult' ads on their platform anymore and... newsflash... there is still sex trafficking...
"@ raises some serious questions about what really are the goals of SESTA. -- No, it doesn't. All the serious questions involve why mega-corporations are allowed to openly operate past the margins of civil society"
Actually, I didn't even think about the possibility to use this to curtail the adult entertainment business, but it does have some pretty big ramifications. There isn't much of a logical leap between 'sex trafficking', the act of a person being forced into a sexual act by another, and 'sex trafficking' saying that the man/woman in the film was doing it against their will which means SESTA would apply... Which, wow... talk about impossible to police. See a pornographic image on the internet? Was that person being FORCED to take that picture? Probably better use SESTA to shut it down... just in case....
That is playing into what NCSE sees as a 'wedge'. They don't care about 'freedoms' or 'rights'... just what they think is right.... so they can be free from the 'evils' of alternative viewpoints.
FYI: you can dissent on here and not be a jerk. I don't agree with everything on the authors say and will make my position heard in a coherent and logical way.
On the post: Never Enough: EU Demands Social Media Companies Do The Impossible Even Faster
Tim, the Tech-Savvy Honorable-And-Infallible Ms. Theresa May has already answered your question... 2 hours...
sheesh... get with the program. Everyone knows that 2 hours of hate speech of a single voice on the internet is more than the sensitive European public can stomach.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
/s
On the post: Republican Governors Association Sets Up Partisan News Site & Forgets To Tell Anyone As It Pumps Out 'News'
Re: The only value the GOP has left...
On the post: SESTA Is Being Pushed As The Answer To A Sex Trafficking 'Epidemic' That Simply Doesn't Exist
How many laws could be used that aren't?
If politicrats want to do something, why not make a 'feel-good' law that says 'companies that suspect sex trafficking ads have been posted should (key word there) notify law enforcement if they become aware of it'. This is a simple, non-binding way to 'do something' without actually harming a large swath of businesses over hysterical moral outrage.
With SESTA, all they are doing is removing it and NOT involving police, because liability (don't need another SJW Kamala Harris looking for political gain to put you in their crosshairs), so... i'm not sure how this is supposed to help anyone involved...
On the post: Prepare For An Epic Bullshit Sales Pitch For The Competition-Killing Sprint, T-Mobile Merger
T-Mobile is starting to add 'bloat' even before the merger.
I'm not a math whiz, but I'm pretty sure a $20 price hike and giving me a $10 video streaming option isn't free...
Oh well... we had a good run while it lasted!
On the post: Scientific Publishers Want Upload Filter To Stop Academics Sharing Their Own Papers Without Permission
DMCA is there for a reason...
But we all know that they won't do it because they know they would lose the PR backlash that would ensue and do more damage if it is picked up by the mainstream press. I don't think they could spin this to a positive if they tried:
STM: You can't publish your paper on ResearchGate
Scientist: But I wrote it.
STM: But I own it.
Public backlash in 3...2...1...
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