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Irregular Verbs for Censorship
One of the greatest moments in British political comedy is from 1986’s Yes Prime Minister: Bernard: That’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a* of the Official Secrets Act It’s a pressing issue that we lack clear terminology for censorship, because…
Fediverse reactions
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Remember Kids! Censorship is terrible and must be avoided at all costs — however, we also can’t allow people to say bad or rude things about our friends…
Also: it’s great to know that all potential things one implicitly could say on a platform, will therefore obviously, literally, and explicitly be endorsed by that platform, simply because the platform enabled that speech. The concept of a common carrier — let alone Section 230 protections in the USA — is not realistic in the…
Fediverse reactions
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Facebook Derangement Syndrome, Part 2: Trust, Safety, and Community Notes
Mark Zuckerberg (MZ) is a lucky sumbitch, and if I were misfortunate enough to be in his position I would do precisely the same thing: [this post is part 2; see part 1 for prior context] Back in 2016 Facebook made an annoucement in response to (déjà vu) a Trump election victory that was widely…
Fediverse reactions
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“Is it a revolution? No, it’s porn…”
Typically, we see such spikes from countries with unstable governments facing internet shutdowns, meaning this is an anomaly.
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The Pornhub Bans Are Not About Keeping Kids Safe | …frankly this goes for most online safety regulation…
…except for the bits which are about parents not wanting to accept partial responsibility for their children’s actions: https://uk.pcmag.com/security/156095/the-pornhub-bans-are-not-about-keeping-kids-safe
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Smuggled Starlink devices allegedly used to defy India’s internet shutdowns | The Guardian
The internet is a dual use technology: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/03/elon-musks-starlink-satellites-allegedly-used-to-defy-indias-internet-shutdowns
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One person’s “over-engineering” is another person’s “…this error or elision would have been obvious to anyone who had actually thought about the problem for ten minutes”
I can’t count the number of times…
Fediverse reactions
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Soviet era Kerosene Lamp Generator gives new meaning to “Let’s fire up the radio!” | The SWLing Post
Tech finds a way: https://swling.com/blog/2020/05/soviet-era-kerosene-lamp-generator-gives-new-meaning-to-lets-fire-up-the-radio/
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Terry Pratchett interview in Adventurer 11 (June/July 1987) | Stuffed Crocodile
This is a must-read, albeit poring over scans of an old gaming zine; you really get a sense of where TP was at that point in his life, just before Mort came out: “Before I could stop myself I was typing ‘The First Universal Church of the Cosmic Confidence Trick’ This is a nutty sect…
Fediverse reactions