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If Meta or Google deplatformed someone over a Mastodon post (without their committing some overt criminal act) Civil Society would utterly lose its shit; therefore…
…therefore that’s why some of us in Trust & Safety are so eager to learn why infosec expert Florian Roth was suddenly booted from Mastodon’s infosec.exchange — because it might be the first big instance of Fediverse political bias leaking into community moderation. Roth, a German (?) and without an apparent political axe to grind,
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Investigatory Powers Act 2016 | how it started vs: how it’s going
(8) A person to whom a relevant notice is given, or any person employed or engaged for the purposes of that person’s business, must not disclose the existence or contents of the notice to any other person without the permission of the Secretary of State. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/part/9/chapter/1/crossheading/additional-powers
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“Tech companies brace after UK demands back door access to Apple cloud” | …what the @ukhomeoffice seek casts a dark shadow over potential growth of the UK Tech Industry
Computer Weekly: Matthew Hodgson, CEO of Element, said that the compromise of the US telecoms network by Salt Typhoon showed that surveillance back doors were a “catastrophically flawed idea”. “Apple should withdraw from the UK rather than comply with this order, and make it clear that becoming complicit in a surveillance state is a line
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Graham Smith (thread on Bluesky) re: judgement on Australian eSafety Commissioner’s office shortcutting of formal process to demand content takedowns from Twitter/X
It appears that the Australians have been playing fast and loose with the formal system for content takedowns, and someone finally complained:
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I hope one day that our Online Digital Rights, Civil Society, Safety & Privacy advocates will remember that “online harms” fall into *three* categories:
1/ those which *bombard you with adverts* 2/ those which *make you feel fear, dread, or suicidal* 3/ those which *get you rounded up by the government* …and they will consider whether their extended fixation with the first two has caused them to ignore the third for rather too long?
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In This Blog Post: Links to Media coverage of the UK Home Office TCN / Technical Capability Notice demand for a backdoor into iCloud & iMessage Backups
I’ll add links to postings as comments, below. Click for access. Check back for updates. See also: https://github.com/alecmuffett/ready-made-twitter-searches#apple-uk-home-office-tcn-on-imessage-icloud-backup-encryption
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Ready-Made Twitter Search for “APPLE: UK HOME OFFICE TCN ON IMESSAGE ICLOUD BACKUP ENCRYPTION BACKDOOR”
Click here: https://github.com/alecmuffett/ready-made-twitter-searches#apple-uk-home-office-tcn-on-imessage-icloud-backup-encryption
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“[ @UKHomeOffice ] orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts [iCloud Backups]” | WaPo | …and now we wait to see how Apple responds
Technical Control Notices — secret orders to platform providers to drill holes in their security to support non-global, nation-state security interests, so “Britain” or “China” rather than “keep everyone safe” — have been issued by the UK against Apple. Of course, once a hole is drilled for one nation, it will be used by [representatives of]
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Democrats Should Be Stopping A Lawless President, Not Helping Censor The Internet, Honestly WTF Are They Thinking | Techdirt
The bill, which is a “bi-partisan” bill initially pushed by Democratic Senator Brian Schatz (in partnership with fellow Dem Chris Murphy, along with Republicans Ted Cruz and Katie Britt) is sort of a an attempt to create a “more palatable” version of KOSA, but which is still a censorship bill at its core. KOSMA reared
Fediverse reactions
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Copium & Puerversiveness: when geeks aren’t as clever as they think they are
We understand copium, but to properly describe the stupidity that I read in an ArsTechnica post I sought refinement and asked some LLMs: “…is there a word to describe the state of self-delusion that one is being subversive and challenging authority through disruptive means?” ChatGPT suggested a neologism: Kakistodicy [is] a blend I created based
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Daring Fireball: ‘Apple in China’ | New Book by Patrick McGee | …one day I might make the time to read this book
Gruber seems positive about it: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/03/apple-in-china-mcgee