Leftovers

• Science

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ The race is on for a new [Internet]

    In May 2023, Dr Benjamin Lanyon at the University of Innsbruck in Austria took an important step toward creating a new kind of internet: he transferred information along an optical fibre 50 kilometres long using the principles of quantum physics.

  • CBC ☛ A ship that sank on Lake Huron 128 years ago is found nearly intact off Ontario's Bruce Peninsula

    The Africa, an American cargo steamer, vanished in 1895 on its way from Ashtabula, Ohio, to Owen Sound, Ont. The ship set off on Oct. 4, 1895, with the barge Severn in tow. Both vessels were loaded with coal and bound for Georgian Bay until a snowstorm snapped the towline separating both vessels.

  • Science News ☛ An enduring Möbius strip mystery has finally been solved

    The twisted loops are so strange that mathematicians have struggled to answer some basic questions about them. For example: “What’s the shortest Möbius strip you can make for a paper band of a given width?”

    The question hooked mathematician Richard Evan Schwartz. A mistake in a computer program almost prevented him from finding the answer. Simply messing around with strips of paper finally helped him solve the mystery.

• Education

  • Alex Ewerlöf ☛ Beyond Staff Engineer

    In theory, this model is ideal. In practice, it misses a few important nuances and can easily lead to feeling overwhelmed.

    Before unpacking Senior Staff Engineer, let’s have a look at the regular Staff Engineer role because as we’ll see ambiguity is a theme in both roles.

  • Terence Eden ☛ Book Review: The Cuckoo's Egg - Clifford Stoll

    Default passwords, unmonitored systems, uninterested law enforcement, dictionary attacks, buggy permissions, the moral quandary of responsible disclosure - it's all in here.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Pro Publica ☛ Sen. Blumenthal Asks FDA and AG for Aggressive Enforcement Against Philips

    Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., has expanded his call to take action against medical device powerhouse Philips Respironics, sending a letter to federal regulators demanding aggressive enforcement against the company for withholding thousands of warnings about a dangerous defect in its breathing machines.

    In the letter on Tuesday to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert M. Califf and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Blumenthal cited a ProPublica and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation last month that revealed the company sold millions of sleep apnea machines and ventilators even after finding that an industrial foam placed inside them was breaking down and emitting chemicals at dangerous levels.

  • Placebos without deception: Misinformation that never dies

    Since yesterday’s post about William Makis and “turbo cancer” appears to have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon, garnering exactly zero comments as of this writing, something that hasn’t happened in a very long time, I thought I’d move on to something that I haven’t discussed in a very long time—2016, as far as I can tell). (Maybe my readers are burned out on COVID-19 and antivax misinformation. I know that I am, at least a little bit.) Fortunately for a blogger looking for a different topic, The New York Times op-ed page yesterday served up a stinker of an article promoting a false narrative often used to justify alternative medicine and “integrating” quackery into medicine (“integrative medicine” or “integrative health”). It’s even by an old “friend” of the blog, an “integrative medicine” researcher and placebo promoter named Ted Kaptchuk, and the article promotes a very old quack narrative about placebos. However, since I haven’t written about this particular narrative about placebos in a long time, I thought that it would be worth applying a bit of the ol’ Insolence to the article, which is entitled No Better Than A Placebo.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Science Alert ☛ AI Was Asked to Design a Walking Robot. It Came Up With This.

    When a group of researchers asked an AI to design a robot that could walk, it created a "small, squishy and misshapen" thing that walks by spasming when filled with air.

  • India Times ☛ Swedish payments group Klarna adds AI-driven photo feature to entice shoppers

    Swedish payments group Klarna has launched a new AI-driven shopping feature, developed with OpenAI tech, that allows people to shop by taking a photo of products they like which then become available to buy in seconds on the company's mobile app.

  • Gizmodo ☛ Klarna Adds AI-Driven Photo Feature to Drive You Further Into Debt

    The AI-driven photo option will also allow consumers to quickly scan the item’s barcode for more accurate results, allowing them to “find it for a cheaper price” on the app. “Just like the internet gave everyone access to information, AI gives everyone access to intelligence, context, and personalization,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and Co-founder of Klarna, said in a news release. “At Klarna, we’re using this to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world, connecting how humans get inspired with how computers search. I’m super proud that Klarna is leading this revolution in retail,” he added.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Digital Music News ☛ RIAA Adds ‘Voice Cloning’ Category to Notorious Markets List

      The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says it saw an eruption of unauthorized AI vocal clone services in 2023. That’s no small surprise—generative AI tech has taken off in a big way this year. The result is that major artists like Drake, 21 Savage, and The Weeknd are seeing their voices cloned to create music tracks that the original artists had no hand in creating. It’s also created questions for Grammy eligibility, which sparked an intense debate earlier this year.

      “An explosion of unauthorized derivative works of our members’ sound recordings harm sound recording artists and copyright owners,” the RIAA says. Most of these services are located outside of the United States, which makes it harder to takedown. For now, the voice cloning site that has attracted the attention of the RIAA is voicify.ai.

    • Techdirt ☛ EBook Pledge To Protect Libraries & Authors From Publishers’ Growing Abuse Of Copyright

      There’s a whole chapter of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) devoted to the serious attack on libraries and their traditional functions that is being carried out by major publishers. The latter are using digital copyright law to take advantage of the shift to eBooks by moving from one-off sales to a recurrent licensing model. The Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21) group are also concerned by what is happening here: [...]

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • [Repeat] EDRI ☛ The UK data bridge: a sneak peek at the UK privacy race to the bottom to come

      On 12 October, the UK extension (Data Bridge) to the EU – US Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework (DPF) will come into force. This is a voluntary scheme US companies can use to share personal data freely with the European Union (EU), and it was introduced after the Court of Justice (CJEU) found that the previous framework, Privacy Shield, did not provide sufficient protection against unlawful surveillance of US state agencies.

      The DPF is about to be tested again in Court against claims that it falls short of meeting basic rule of law guarantees, but the Government decision to extend this scheme to the UK unveils some deeper issues with the UK data protection reform. If approved, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDIB) would allow the UK Secretary of State to authorise personal data transfers to third countries even when they lack enforceable rights and effective remedies — and while the UK Government argues that the new regime would not differ substantially from the one inherited from the EU GDPR, the decision to adopt the EU – US DPF tells us a different story.

    • NPR ☛ 'Too dangerous:' Why even Google was afraid to release this technology

      Originally developed by two hackers in Poland, it's an AI tool that's like a reverse image search on steroids — it scans a face in a photo and crawls dark corners of the internet to surface photos many people didn't even know existed of themselves in the background of restaurants or attending a concert.

      While the company claims it is a service that can help people monitor their online presence, it has generated controversy for its use as a surveillance tool for stalkers, collecting countless images of children and for adding images of dead people to its database without permission.

      Without any federal laws on the books in the U.S. governing facial recognition technology, services copying PimEyes are expected to proliferate in the coming years.

    • The Strategist ☛ Examining Chinese citizens’ views on state surveillance

      A new ASPI report, Surveillance, privacy and agency: insights from China, examines how, in addition to online repression and surveillance, the People’s Republic of China has become the world’s primary example of tech-enhanced social control with its society-wide system of ‘techno-authoritarianism’. Over the past year, ASPI and a non-government research partner worked on this project, which is designed to share detailed information on state surveillance in the PRC and engage thousands of PRC residents on the issue of surveillance technology. The decision has been made not to identify this partner to preserve its access to specific research techniques and data and to protect its staff.

    • India Times ☛ Google makes passkeys default option for all users

      With passkeys, users can sign in to apps and websites with a biometric sensor (such as a fingerprint or facial recognition), PIN, or pattern, freeing them from having to remember and manage passwords.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Press Gazette ☛ BBC defends decision not to use word ‘terrorist’ in Hamas reporting

    The BBC has defended its decision not to refer to Gaza-headquartered Hamas as “terrorists” in its reporting of attacks which have cost more than 1,000 lives in Israel this week.

    The broadcaster has frequently referred to Hamas as “militants” rather than “terrorists” in its coverage since the group launched an attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

  • The Verge ☛ Utah sues TikTok for getting children ‘addicted’ to its algorithm

    Utah Governor Spencer Cox accused the company of “misleading parents that its app is safe for children” in a press release announcing the lawsuit today. He said the app “illegally baits children into addictive and unhealthy use” with features that encourage young users to scroll endlessly in order to make more advertising money.

    The lawsuit alleges that TikTok violates the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act (UCSPA) by making the app addictive to children and profiting from it; misrepresenting things like the safety of its app and fairness of its policies; and claiming that it’s based in the US and not controlled from China by ByteDance.

  • Associated Press ☛ Utah sues TikTok, alleging it lures children into addictive and destructive social media habits

    “TikTok designed and employs algorithm features that spoon-feed kids endless, highly curated content from which our children struggle to disengage. TikTok designed these features to mimic a cruel slot machine that hooks kids’ attention and does not let them go,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said at the news conference.

    The lawsuit seeks to force TikTok to change its “destructive behavior” while imposing fines and penalties to fund education efforts and otherwise address damage done to Utah children, Reyes said.

  • ABC ☛ Utah sues TikTok, alleging it lures children into addictive and destructive social media habits

    Utah earlier this year became the first state to pass laws that aim to limit children and teen use of social media apps such as TikTok. The laws are set to take effect next year.

  • Gannett ☛ Utah lawsuit says TikTok intentionally lures children into addictive, harmful behavior

    The lawsuit, filed in state court in Salt Lake City, accuses TikTok of luring young users with its "highly powerful algorithms and manipulative design features," creating addictive and unhealthy habits among consumers. Utah claims that the company misrepresents the app's safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of ByteDance, its Chinese parent company.

    The lawsuit is the latest attempt by lawmakers to regulate and hold social media companies accountable for their content and protection of users’ private data. During a news conference alongside Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said his "top priority" is to protect children in the state.

    “We're tired of TikTok lying to Utah parents," Cox said. "We're tired of our kids losing their innocence and even their lives addicted to the dark side of social media."

  • India Times ☛ Utah sues TikTok over impact of app on children

    "What these children (and their parents) do not know is that TikTok is lying to them about the safety of its app and exploiting them into checking and watching the app compulsively, no matter the terrible effects it has on their mental health, their physical development, their family, and their social life," said Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes in a filing.

  • US News And World Report ☛ 'Addictive' Social Media Feeds That Keep Children Online Targeted by New York Lawmakers

    New York would restrict the way online platforms like Instagram and YouTube can collect and share children’s personal information and let parents keep their kids from being bombarded by “addictive” feeds from accounts they don’t follow, under legislation proposed Wednesday.

  • The Atlantic ☛ Should You Delete Your Kid’s TikTok This Week?

    Of course, kids have long been at risk of encountering disturbing or graphic content on social media. But the current era of single feeds serving short videos selected by algorithms, sometimes with little apparent logic, potentially changes the calculus. Firing up TikTok feels like pulling the lever of a content slot machine; every time a user opens up the app, they don’t necessarily know whether they’ll find comedy or horror. Lots of kids are pulling the lever many times a day, sometimes spending hours in the app. Nor is this just a TikTok problem: Instagram and YouTube, among other platforms, both have their own TikTok-like feeds. Much of the material on these platforms is benign, but on weeks like this one, when even adults may have trouble stomaching visuals they encounter, the idea that children are all over social media is particularly unsettling.

  • Federal News Network ☛ ‘Addictive’ social media feeds that keep children online targeted by New York lawmakers

    The bills offered by state leaders are aimed at protecting young people from features designed to keep them endlessly scrolling, endangering their mental health and development, Attorney General Letitia James said.

  • ADF ☛ Extremists Threaten to Encircle Burkina Faso’s Capital

    Since the coups that brought Capt. Ibrahim Traoré to power in October 2022, deaths from terrorism in Burkina Faso have tripled, according to an analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS).

  • Spiegel ☛ "Wide Swaths of Arab-Speaking Population Harbor Sympathies for Terrorists"

    Balci: Samidoun attracts attention because the group’s followers put their hatred on display in the streets. But their attitudes are widespread in certain Muslim milieus. People don’t want trouble with the police, so they avoid publicizing their anti-Semitism. But all you have to do is talk to people and you start hearing the same slogans.

  • Pro Publica ☛ How Police, Politicians Undermined Reform-Minded Prosecutors

    After the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the months of protests that followed, the city of St. Louis was forced to reckon with its Black residents’ longstanding distrust of its police and courts.

    Kim Gardner emerged as a voice for change. A lifelong resident of St. Louis, she had diverse professional experiences, having worked as a funeral director, a nurse, a lawyer and a state legislator. When campaigning for circuit attorney, the city’s top prosecutor, she focused on the disproportionate frequency of arrests and police officers using force against St. Louis’ Black community.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Can Peace in Ukraine Be Achieved Without War? Medea Benjamin & Barbara Smith Debate

    So far this year, U.S. spending on Israel, typically the largest annual recipient of U.S. military aid, has been outstripped by military aid to Ukraine, though that balance could begin to change as President Biden plans to ask Congress to approve emergency funding to support Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip following Saturday’s attack by Hamas militants. For more on U.S. policy in Ukraine and Israel, we host a discussion with CodePink’s Medea Benjamin and the Ukraine Solidarity Network’s Barbara Smith. Benjamin urges diplomacy and deescalation, arguing that “we have to get off this treadmill of military madness that only benefits the weapons companies and brings horror, suffering, death, destruction,” while Smith, a co-founder of the Combahee River Collective and of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, says that calls for immediate ceasefire are idealistic. “This is an invasion by an imperial power, namely Russia, and I stand with the people of Ukraine,” she states.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy: Israel Should Lift Siege & Call Off Plans for Ground Invasion of Gaza

    From Tel Aviv, we hear from award-winning Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy, whose recent column for Haaretz is headlined “Israel Can’t Imprison Two Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price.” Levy discusses the reaction within Israeli society toward Hamas’s unexpected attack and condemns the Netanyahu government for only mobilizing for further warfare rather than providing effective assistance to victims. “Nobody is leading Israel,” declares Levy, who also calls for Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza and accept that its campaign of eradicating Hamas is “impossible.” After decades of Palestinian subjugation under Israeli rule, “you can kill the current top people of Hamas, but you will not kill the ideology of Hamas,” says Levy.

  • Democracy Now ☛ Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s Siege & Bombing of Gaza Are War Crimes. Is Ethnic Cleansing Next?

    As Israel prepares to launch a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, we continue our coverage of escalating conflict in the Middle East. We’re joined from Ramallah by Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician, activist and politician who serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, also known as al-Mubadara, and is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council. “I don’t want any Palestinian or Israeli civilian to be killed,” says Barghouti, who argues that a ground operation in Gaza would constitute a campaign of ethnic cleansing, and condemns Israeli occupation and settlement under far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as having destroyed any “prospective for a two-state solution.” Barghouti also discusses President Biden’s abnegation of responsibility toward Palestinian Americans, Egypt’s role in the conflict and the relationship within Palestine between the “totally marginalized” Palestinian Authority and groups like Hamas.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Former space agency head Dmitry Rogozin seeks probe into Mikhail Fridman’s alleged sponsorship of Ukrainian military — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘Thirty years down the line, we’re back in “1984”’: Civil liberties advocate Oleg Orlov addresses a Russian court at the conclusion of his trial — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • The Nation ☛ The USPS Is Falsifying Safety Documents as Its Workers Die of Heat

    Through interviews and union surveys completed in writing by individual Dallas mail carriers and obtained by the Texas Observer, we found that in the months following Gates’s death, the USPS seems to have gone back to business as usual. Mail carriers report that management is still pressuring them to speed up, work overtime hours, and forgo breaks. The USPS continues to violate the standards of its own Heat Illness Prevention Program (HIPP)—some mail carriers say they have not yet completed training for this program, which would violate the standards of the USPS’s own HIPP. What’s more, the agency is alleged to have covered this up by doctoring records to show that HIPP training was completed.

• Environment

  • NPR ☛ Formula 1 weighs changes after drivers vomit, pass out due to heat during Qatar race

    Qatar is already among the world's hottest countries, and with climate change, high temperatures will get even more extreme.

    Mercedes driver George Russell said the temperature in the cockpit of his car exceeded 50 degrees Celsius — or 122 degrees Fahrenheit — ESPN reported.

  • Truthdig ☛ A California Law Will Force Corporations To Disclose Emissions

    That means oil and gas companies like Chevron will likely have to account for emissions from vehicles that use their gasoline, and Apple will have to account for materials that go into iPhones.

    It’s a huge leap from current federal and state reporting requirements, which require reporting of only certain emissions from companies’ direct operations. And it will have global ramifications.

  • Omicron Limited ☛ Study identifies remains of artificial turf as important source of pollution in aquatic environment

    Every year, around 1,200 and 1,400 artificial turf sports fields are installed in the European Union. These fields are made up of synthetic fibers, mainly plastics, that mimic the appearance of natural grass. Recently, the Consolidated Research Group in Marine Geosciences of the Faculty of Earth Sciences at the University of Barcelona conducted a study that, for the first time, characterizes and quantifies the presence of artificial turf fibers in samples collected from surface waters of the Catalan coast and the Guadalquivir River.

  • The Atlantic ☛ The Mississippi Is Losing Its Fight With the Ocean

    Whatever the climate brings in a year, the Mississippi River keeps the score. This year’s saltwater intrusion “is the integration of all these environmental events that have happened throughout the Great Plains, throughout the Ohio Valley, throughout parts of the Mountain West,” Matthew Hiatt, a hydrologist at Louisiana State University, told me. Landside drought lowers the river’s water levels, and rising sea levels on the ocean side pushes salt water in. Those who study the Mississippi agree that this year’s saltwater intrusion is a particularly dramatic example of what may become a more frequent feature of the dry season. “This is not a one-off or once-in-100-years thing,” William McAnally, hydraulic-engineering professor emeritus at Mississippi State University, told me. “It’s something we’re going to be seeing rather often.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ AI's Electricity Use Is Spiking So Fast It'll Soon Use as Much Power as an Entire Country

      In a recent analysis published in the journal Joule, data scientist Alex de Vries at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands found that by 2027, these server farms could use anywhere between 85 to 134 terawatt hours of energy per year.

    • Cell Press ☛ The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence

      Throughout 2022 and 2023, artificial intelligence (AI) has witnessed a period of rapid expansion and extensive, large-scale application. Prominent tech companies such as Alphabet and Microsoft significantly increased their support for AI in 2023, influenced by the successful launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a conversational generative AI chatbot that reached 100 million users in an unprecedented 2 months. In response, Microsoft and Alphabet introduced their own chatbots, Bing Chat and Bard, respectively.1 This accelerated development raises concerns about the electricity consumption and potential environmental impact of AI and data centers. In recent years, data center electricity consumption has accounted for a relatively stable 1% of global electricity use, excluding cryptocurrency mining. Between 2010 and 2018, global data center electricity consumption may have increased by only 6%.2 here is increasing apprehension that the computational resources necessary to develop and maintain AI models and applications could cause a surge in data centers' contribution to global electricity consumption.

    • New York Times ☛ A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country

      A peer-reviewed analysis published Tuesday lays out some early estimates. In a middle-ground scenario, by 2027 A.I. servers could use between 85 to 134 terawatt hours (Twh) annually. That’s similar to what Argentina, the Netherlands and Sweden each use in a year, and is about 0.5 percent of the world's current electricity use.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Register UK ☛ California's Governor Newsom signs laws on right to repair and data deletion

    With the signing of the Right to Repair Act (SB 244), California becomes the fourth state to enact such rules, following New York, Colorado, and Minnesota – or the third to focus specifically on electronic devices, given that Colorado's law addresses fixing farm equipment.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Congressional Democrats push Biden to codify AI Bill of Rights in executive order

    The AI Bill of Rights, which was published last October, emphasizes key values for the deployment of artificial intelligence, including privacy, protections against algorithm discrimination and explainability. But the principles don’t currently carry the force of law.

    Now, these lawmakers want Biden to order federal agencies to apply these principles when deploying their own AI operations. Agencies should have to consider these requirements when using AI that could have a significant impact on the public, in addition to adopting best practices, they wrote in the letter.

  • [Repeat] Security Week ☛ US Government Releases Security Guidance for Open Source Software in OT, ICS

    Authored by CISA, the FBI, the NSA, and the US Department of Treasury, the guidance provides recommendations on supporting OSS development, patching vulnerabilities, and using the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) for adopting security best practices.

    According to the document, security concerns that OSS and OT share with all software systems include the existence of vulnerabilities in libraries and components, lack of commercial support, and insufficient documentation prior to implementation.

  • CISA ☛ Improving Security of Open Source Software in Operational Technology and Industrial Control Systems [PDF]

    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. Department of the Treasury are releasing this fact sheet for senior leadership and operations personnel at operational technology (OT) vendors and critical infrastructure facilities. This fact sheet will assist with better management of risk from OSS use in OT products and increase resilience using available resources. While several resources and recommendations within this fact sheet are best suited for execution by the vendor or the critical infrastructure owner, collaboration across parties will result in less friction for operator workflows and promote a safer, more reliable system and provision of National Critical Functions.

  • El País ☛ Yanis Varoufakis: ‘Capitalism is dead. The new order is a techno-feudal economy’

    Answer. Amazon’s Alexa, for example, is nothing more than a portal. Behind it, there’s a centralized totalitarian system created to satisfy its owner, Jeff Bezos. [This system] does four things at the same time: it trains us to tell it what we want. It directly sells us what we know we “want,” regardless of any real market. It makes us reproduce its capital in the cloud (that is, it’s an immense behavior modification machine), because thanks to our work — which is done without remuneration — it publishes reviews or rates products. And finally, it amasses enormous profits from the capitalists who are operating within this network… generally, 40% of the sticker price [of products]. This isn’t capitalism — welcome to technofeudalism!

  • Axios ☛ Exclusive: Booz Allen aims to bring AI to government offices

    The intrigue: Government AI contractors are grappling with the tension between delivering more transparent AI systems and the risk of opening more threat vectors thanks to that transparency.

  • Zimbabwe ☛ Zimbabwe is not ready to take full advantage of what AI has to offer

    They raised more or less the points that many have been raising for a while. We need access to computers and more importantly, the internet, to fully utilise AI. Unfortunately, we live in a country where, according to the latest Potraz ICT sector report;

  • Futurism ☛ Alameda Secretly Had Value of Negative $2.7 Billion, Insider Tells Court

    Well, around the same time that Curry and Brady were inking their lucrative FTX contracts, Alameda Research — the hedge fund and sister company to FTX that held a central role in the exchange's finances and ultimately its financial demise — was compensating for an alleged $2.7 billion hole in its balance sheet and making risky bets with cash it didn't have.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • The Register UK ☛ EU threatens X with DSA penalties over spread of Israel-Hamas disinformation

      In a letter posted to X on Tuesday, EC commissioner Thierry Breton said the EC has indications that X posters were sharing fake and manipulated images, photos and video from prior conflicts and even footage from video games that were being passed off as content from the current conflict.

      "This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information," Breton said in his letter. "Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation."

    • India Times ☛ Germany's anti-discrimination agency quits X over anti-minority posts

      Germany's Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency said it would close its account on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, because of increasing intolerance of minorities expressed by users on the site, and urged other bodies to follow suit.

      The rapid spread of misleading claims and doctored images in the aftermath of a deadly rampage by Hamas gunmen in Israel over the weekend has put renewed focus on Elon Musk's platform, which most recently drew the ire of the European Union.

    • The Washington Post ☛ Amazon’s Alexa has been claiming the 2020 election was stolen

      Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

    • India Times ☛ X promises 'highest level' response on posts about Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation still flourishes

      The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, says it is trying to take action on a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the war between Israel and Hamas.

    • India Times ☛ EU's tech commissioner turns to X rival Bluesky in disinformation duel with Elon Musk

      The EU's top internet enforcer took to X, the rebranded Twitter, on Wednesday to trumpet a rival platform, as a duel with Elon Musk over disinformation ratcheted up.

      Thierry Breton, the European Union's commissioner for industry and the digital economy, joined the Bluesky network in a move designed to further rile Musk, who is fighting to keep X relevant but out of Brussels' regulatory sights.

    • Futurism ☛ Elon Musk Is in Big Trouble Over the Israel-Palestine Violence: X is teeming with fake news about the war.

      In an "urgent letter" addressed to X owner Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, accused the platform of enabling the dissemination of "illegal content and disinformation in the EU" and ordered Musk to file a response "within the next 24 hours," ensuring "that your systems are effective, and report on the crisis measures taken."

      Breton also wrote that the "violent and terrorist content that appears to circulate on your platform," after Musk made "changes in public interest policies" was leaving "many European users uncertain."

    • New York Times ☛ False Claims Around the Israel Attacks Include Recycled Videos and a Game Clip

      The false information circulating online risks clouding real evidence of atrocities that is emerging as Israeli soldiers retake control of places that were attacked: videos and photos, corroborated by witness accounts, that show that Palestinian gunmen attacked and killed Israeli civilians in large numbers. Soldiers and emergency workers are still recovering the dead, including children, in many communities.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Pro Publica ☛ Book Bans in Texas Spread as a New State Law Takes Effect

    As a new Texas law further restricting what books students can check out of school libraries takes effect, local bans are gaining steam in districts across the state — in some cases going in startling directions.

    In Katy, a growing Houston suburb, school officials recently bought $93,000 worth of new library books and promptly put them in storage so an internal committee could review them. The district then banned 14 titles (bringing its total since 2021 to 30), including popular books by Dr. Seuss and Judy Blume, as well as “No, David!” an award-winning children’s book featuring a mischievous cartoon character who at one point jumps out of a bathtub, exposing a cartoon backside. (This wasn’t the district’s first foray into regulating cartoon nudity; over the summer, a book about a crayon that lost its wrapper, becoming “naked” in the process, was flagged for review but ultimately retained.)

  • [Repeat] Off Guardian ☛ Israel-Hamas “war” – another excuse to shut down free speech

    But there’s another interpretation: That fake war stories are being intentionally seeded onto social media and then “debunked” to discredit platforms and appear to justify digital censorship.

    Within the past twenty-four hours Reuters, NBC, YahooNews, The Guardian and the AP have run stories criticising the proliferation of “fake war news” on social media. Al Jazeera joined in too.

    Almost all of those accusations have been directed solely at Twitter/X – increasingly the media’s anti-free speech strawman.

  • JURIST ☛ Delhi official authorizes sedition prosecution against award-winning author over 2010 speech

    Under the Indian Criminal Procedure Code, officials are required to bring a valid sanction for offenses such as hate speech, hurting religious sentiments, hate crimes, sedition, waging war against the state and promoting enmity among others, before proceeding to prosecution. As of Tuesday, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Vinai Kumar Saxena officially granted approval for the authorities to proceed with a sedition case against Roy and her co-defendants. Since the 2010 speech, however, Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani have died.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • [Old] RSF ☛ India: Media freedom under threat

    The authorities’ targeting of journalists, coupled with a broader crackdown on dissent, has emboldened Hindu nationalists to threaten, harass, and abuse journalists critical of the Indian government, both online and offline, with impunity, the groups said.

    The organizations are Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, International Federation of Journalists, CIVICUS, Access Now, International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Axios ☛ 8,700 workers walk out of Ford Kentucky Truck Plant as UAW expands strike

    Why it matters: The UAW said in an online post that the surprise move as the strike nears its fourth week marked a "new phase" in its action against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as previous strike expansions "occurred at a deadline set in advance by the union."

  • EDRI ☛ How tech corporations like Google, Meta and Amazon should assess impacts on our rights

    It has been almost a year since the DSA was adopted, but companies and policymakers are still deciding on who has to follow which rules laid down by the law. The European Commission has designated 19 tech companies as being either “very large online platforms” (VLOPs) or “very large online search engines” (VLOSEs). Therefore, these platforms and service providers must now fulfil additional obligations to safeguard the freedom of expression and access to information, and to stop the spread of illegal online content.

    One of these requirements is for companies to understand, assess, and mitigate any risks to fundamental rights stemming from their services. But ensuring and enforcing this work in a meaningful way will be challenging: [...]

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Digital nomad visas are on the rise in Africa – but South Africa is far behind

    Namibia is the latest of four African countries to offer digital nomad visas to remote workers. Mauritius, Cape Verde and the Seychelles also all have visa programmes targeting digital nomads, yet South Africa still lags behind.

    A digital nomad visa allows someone to live in a country that is not their homeland while working remotely for a company based outside the one they live in. Governments that issue digital nomad visas never refer to them as such, choosing to call them residence permits or devising a special name for them. The permit generally expires after 12 months and the option to renew varies from country to country.

  • Hackaday ☛ Meshtastic And Owntracks To Kick Your Google Habit

    I have an admission to make. I have a Google addiction. Not the normal addiction — I have a problem with Google Maps, and the timeline feature. I know, I’m giving my location data to Google, who does who-knows-what-all with it. But it’s convenient to have an easy way to share location with my wife, and very useful to track my business related travel for each month. What we could really use is a self-hosted, open source system to track locations and display location history. And for bonus points, let’s include some extra features, like the ability to track vehicles, kids, and pets that aren’t carrying a dedicated Internet connection.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Techdirt ☛ AT&T Looking To Dump DirecTV After Years Of Merger Headaches

    AT&T spent $200 billion to acquire Time Warner and DirecTV, believing this would turn the dodgy old phone company into an innovative new media juggernaut. But despite $42 billion in tax breaks and oodles of regulatory favors from the Trump administration (like killing net neutrality), AT&T simply couldn’t overcome its own nature as a bumbling, government-pampered telecom monopoly.

• Monopolies

  • NPR ☛ Amazon sellers say they made a good living — until Amazon figured it out

    He was hooked. He started selling more hair and beauty products on Amazon. Soon that part-time hustle became his full-time business, Top Shelf Brands. Within a couple of years, Mrdeza had more than 40 employees, ran four warehouses and was bringing in $10 million in revenue, he says.

    "It was thriving, for sure," Mrdeza says. "We were all in."

    None of it lasted. Today, Top Shelf Brands is bankrupt, its employees laid off and its warehouses shuttered. It's one of an untold number of third-party Amazon merchants that cashed in and then lost it all. And it serves as an illustration of their precarious position on Amazon, where everything can change from one day to the next.