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Archive | May, 2017
Open letter to the EU on German »NetzDG «
By HAX on May 24, 2017 in Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, EU, Free Information, Germany, Rule of law, social media
This bill asks social media companies to take down content, including perfectly legal material, that social media companies like Facebook can arbitrarily label as “hate speech”, “fake news”, “pornographic content”, among other categories. In addition, the draft law de facto imposes filtering of content, despite the fact that such technology cannot understand context and will, therefore, inevitably lead to still more legal content being deleted. The basic aim of the bill is, of course, well-intentioned. However, the way this bill is drafted appoints social media companies as arbiters of legality and “the truth”. Furthermore, this bill breaches EU law, which establishes that all restrictions to fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, must be provided for by law, necessary and proportionate (Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union). In addition, EU law also prohibits imposing general monitoring obligations on companies. If adopted, this unprecedented law would serve as a bad example for other states, including countries with serious democratic deficits.
EDRi » EU action needed: German NetzDG draft threatens freedom of expression »
»Theresa May to shut down the internet as we know it«
By HAX on May 22, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil rights, Deep State, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Internet, Privacy, surveillance, UK
“Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it states. “We disagree.”
The Independent: Theresa May to Crete New Internet that would be Controlled and Regulated by Government »
Pull the various tech-related manifesto pledges together and – if the polls are correct and May wins a majority in next month’s election – the Conservatives could have a mandate from the British public for a significant extension of internet regulation, all based on the idea that a government’s duty to protect citizens exists just as much on the internet as it does in the real world.
Buzzfeed: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet »
“Balances” freedoms? Freedoms aren’t supposed to be “balanced.” They’re supposed to be supported and protected. And when you have your freedoms protected, that also protects users. Those two things aren’t in opposition. They don’t need to be balanced. As for “obligations for businesses and platforms” — those five words are basically the ones that say “we’re going to force Google and Facebook to censor stuff we don’t like, while making it impossible for any new platform to ever challenge the big guys.” It’s a bad, bad idea.
Techdirt: Theresa May Plans To Regulate, Tax And Censor The Internet »
WannaCry: NSA knew about the dangers
It appears the NSA finally engaged in the Vulnerabilities Equity Process — not when it discovered the vulnerability, but rather when it became apparent the agency wouldn’t be able to prevent it from being released to the public. (…)
Officials called it “fishing with dynamite.” The exploit gave the NSA access to so much on compromised computers, the agency obviously couldn’t bear the thought of voluntarily giving up such a useful hacking tool. But when it was first deployed, some inside the agency felt the vulnerability might be too powerful to be left undisclosed.
Techdirt: NSA Was Concerned About Power Of Windows Exploit Long Before It Was Leaked »
Where Facebook draws the red line
From Facebooks content moderation guidelines:
We aim to allow as much speech as possible but draw the line at content that could credibly cause real world harm. People commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in generally facetious and unserious ways.
We aim to disrupt potential real world harm caused from people inciting or coordinating harm to other people or property by requiring certain details to be present in order to consider the treat credible. In our experience, it’s this detail that helps establish that a threat is more likely to occur.
Ars Technica: Facebook content moderation guidelines leaked »
The Guardian: Revealed: Facebook’s internal rulebook on sex, terrorism and violence »
The future of profiling
Even worse, profiling and similar techniques are increasingly used not just to classify and understand people, but also to make decisions that have far-reaching consequences, from credit to housing, welfare and employment. Intelligent CCTV software automatically flags “suspicious behaviour”, intelligence agencies predict internet users’ citizenship to decide they are foreign (fair game) or domestic (usually not fair game), and the judicial system claims to be able to predicts future criminals.
As someone once said: it’s Orwell when it’s accurate and Kafka when it’s not.
Privacy International » Cambridge Analytica Explained: Data and Elections »
The Internet after UK elections?
By HAX on May 19, 2017 in Big Government, Civil rights, Deep State, Democracy, Internet, Privacy, UK
UK Prime Minister and noted authoritarian Theresa May has promised that if she wins the upcoming general election, her party will abolish internet access in the UK, replacing it with a government-monitored internet where privacy tools are banned and online services will be required to vet all user-supplied content for compliance with rules about pornography, political speech, copyright compliance and so on — and search engines will have to employ special British rules to exclude banned material from their search results.
BoingBoing: Theresa May promises a British version of Iran’s Halal Internet »
EU Commission failing its oath
The President of the European Commission said in 2010: “The oath of independence and respect for the EU Treaties is more than a symbolic act”. As it turned out, it was not even a symbolic act.
Joe McNamee, EDRi: Commissioners’ oath – a broken promise on fundamental rights »
Sweden, an Orwellian state
By HAX on May 19, 2017 in affairs, Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Twitter
Something remarkable happened in Sweden this week: a list of 15,000 people with the wrong political opinions was used to block those people from the @Sweden account, and thereby preventing these people from communicating over Twitter with that part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The government tried defending the block as only concerning neo-nazi right-wing extremists, which was a narrative that held water in legacy media until somebody pointed out that the Ambassador of Israel (!) was among the blocked.
Falkvinge: What do you do when you realize your government has blocked you for Wrongthink? »
The Assange case – now what?
By HAX on May 19, 2017 in Assange, Civil rights, Deep State, Free Information, Freedom of the Press, Human rights, Law enforcement, Wikileaks
The Swedish special prosecutor has decided to close the investigation into sexual misconduct against Wikileaks editor in chief Julian Assange.
First of all, the case in itself was remarkably thin. Second, Assange has never been charged with any crime. The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) was issued to question him. Such an interview was conducted last November. So, reasonably, the EAW have lost its function.
So, now… what?
British authorities still want to get their hands on Assange – formally for having jumped bail, which is a crime that is punishable with up to one year in prison.
But the core of the matter is: Will he be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for some of the things Wikileaks has published? We know that there is a grand jury looking into the matter. But there are also strong voices referring to the first amendment in the constitution. It wouldn’t be reasonable to charge Wikileaks but not e.g. New York Times for publishing the same information.
The British authorities have, so far, refused to confirm or deny whether it has already received a U.S. extradition warrant for Julian Assange.
So, yet, it is not possible for Assange to walk out of the Ecuadorian embassy a free man.
/ HAX