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Could a Senate bill cause age verification laws to apply to Netflix? Experts say yes | The Globe & Mail
The “true north strong and free” frets about “Netflix and Chill”: > During committee testimony Monday, Ripley confirmed the government’s interpretation that as written, the proposed law would make it a rule for services like Netflix to verify the age of their users. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-could-a-senate-bill-cause-age-verification-laws-to-apply-to-netflix/
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Opinion: Ottawa wants the power to create secret backdoors in our networks to allow for surveillance – The Globe and Mail
Oh, Canada. > A federal cybersecurity bill, slated to advance through Parliament soon, contains secretive, encryption-breaking powers that the government has been loath to talk about. And they threaten the online security of everyone in Canada. Bill C-26 empowers government officials to secretly order telecommunications companies to install backdoors inside encrypted elements in Canada’s networks.…
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Mozilla urges WhatsApp to combat misinformation ahead of global elections
“There must be bad stuff! They just aren’t showing it to us!” > The data that they gathered formed the basis of an award-winning paper they wrote called “What circulates on Partisan WhatsApp in India?” Although the findings were surprising — Garimella and Chandrachud found that misinformation and hate speech did not, in fact, make…
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Best Fit Proportional Constituency Allocation | by @djstimms
This is a fun proportional representation idea which I haven’t seen before (not that I’m an expert) https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1795551697860792632.html
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It’s nice to see Ciaran Martin RTing Yann LeCun on AI Doomerism, and worth quoting in full
Worth saving and quoting in its entirety. > The Doomer’s Delusion:
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Xi Jinping’s recipe for total control: An army of eyes and ears | The Japan Times
As with many aspects of the state the most urgent challenge is to convince people of its utter necessity in every aspect of life, that it is under threat, and that that is their problem to solve. > The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in…
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Inside the scramble to ‘prebunk’ election misinformation before it takes hold | The Washington Post | FULL ARTICLE
A gift link from one of the authors, so you can read the entire article. Radical _heresy_ of course, to suggest that misinformation is best combated directly rather than solved by “imposing a duty of care on platforms”. > Election officials around the world are adopting “prebunking” campaigns, as AI and other threats jeopardize voting.…
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ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down
In other news: ICQ still exists? https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-apps/152479/icq-one-of-the-oldest-instant-messengers-is-shutting-down
Fediverse reactions
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Tories plan to introduce obligatory “national (cyber)service” for 18+, consequences are easy to imagine
Basically like the Stasi, half of them will have to spend their time spying on the other half & vice-versa in order to attempt to rein-in various abuses of privilege & power that would be available to them. This is a bonkers idea. Citizenship may bring obligation but a wise government doesn’t wage war upon…
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If 16-year-olds are given the vote we can rapidly expect to see a “Online Misinformation Bill” …
…where MPs and techlash activists will battle to force “Foreign Algorithms” on “American & Chinese Platforms” to oblige equal eyeball-engagement for approved “Party Election Content”, whilst also incidentally censoring actual political discussion. “Yo, this has been a party political shitpost by the Liberal Democrats, innit?” > Labour would allow 16-year-olds to vote in future general…
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“Fascinating how when it’s voting age they are ‘under-18s’, or ‘16 & 17 year olds’, but when it’s online safety, smartphones & social media they are ‘children’” | @cyberleagle
Graham Smith makes a pithy observation. (links to the Times)
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“Signal would rather leave the EU market than subject our users to mass gov surveillance. FULL STOP.”
Good to make that clear; that said, Signal does not have enough money for the EU to consider it worth applying fines, and from my perspective the opportunity to levy fines are the primary goal of most European privacy legislation.