Links 15/03/2024: Attacks on Freedom of the Press and China Mobilises TikTok Addicts
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Chris O'Donnnell ☛ 13 Years of living with less Google
I made my first attempt at a de-Googed life in 2011, and wrote this final update in 2013. Long time noted online citizen Tim Bray is writing about de-Googling in 2024, which caused me to think about my post, and that led to this update 13 years later.
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Mandaris Moore ☛ Getting a different feeling from my email
I wrote a personal email and got a response.
It wasn’t long. Just a couple sentences.
But it made me feel good and I hope that it made the other person feel something other than dread when they look at their mailbox next time.
With all the push for making connections with personal blogs, I feel that a push for personal emails should also get a moment to shine.
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Matt Birchler ☛ If you want your movie to have any cultural significance, put it in theaters
It was a pretty brutal night for the streamers and a great night for Universal and Searchlight. Apple was completely shut out and Netflix just won Best Live Action Short Film for Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer (Universal) and Poor Things (Searchlight) took almost everything each of them were nominated for.
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Lou Plummer ☛ A Lovely Routine - The Digital Checklist That Brings Me Joy Every Day and The Hunt for Links
I have a digital checklist I try to complete every day. It helps me do the mundane things we all have to do, stay on top of my email, organize my notes, keep important software updated. My checklist also helps me to remember to do the fun things I enjoy: uploading a photo every day to Micro.blog where it gets cross posted to all the social media sites in which I participate. I have a reminder to check in daily at Product Hunt because I enjoy seeing what’s new in the software categories I follow. The other “fun” item I try to check off seven days a week is to find a bookmark to share.
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Matt Birchler ☛ I believe in people more than others, apparently
I’m pretty sure if we invented websites and the web browser in 2024 there would be a large group of people loudly arguing that no normal person could ever figure it out. “An app that loads more than one thing? And those things can link to each other? Some sort of interconnected network???? That’s just for nerds.” I feel like we’ve overcorrected as a community: focusing on making computer interfaces more intuitive was of course a great thing, but I get the feeling a non-insignificant contingent of commentators have taken this to the point where they think people who aren’t them are just dumb idiots who can barely figure out how a fork works, let alone how to use a piece of software that does more than one simple thing.
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Kev Quirk ☛ Thinking about a New Layout
I like the menu that I use on this site, but it does take a lot of space up, especially on mobile. So I've been ruminating on what I can do to improve things.
Then I had a bit of an epiphany...generally speaking, screens these days have much more horizontal space than vertical space. So why not make use of that?
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Science
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Futurism ☛ Scientists Discover Bizarre and Ancient Fossilized Forest
In a picturesque corner of England, along dramatic sandstone cliffs, researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff have uncovered a wondrous discovery: 390-million-year-old fossilized remains of the oldest forest ever found.
Tantalizingly, this forest is unlike anything you could see in today's natural environment. As detailed in a new paper in the Journal of Geological Study, the trees — which look like giant 13-foot thistles — are considered some of the first to appear in our planet's long history.
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The Register UK ☛ NASA missions delayed by supercomputing shortcomings
Published on Thursday, the audit opens by declaring "NASA needs a renewed commitment and sustained leadership attention to reinvigorate its [high-end computing] HEC efforts. Without key changes, the Agency's HEC is likely to constrain future mission priorities and goals."
Those changes are needed because NASA's HEC ops – a term the audit uses interchangeably with supercomputing – are managed by its Earth Science Research Program within the Science Mission Directorate, rather than as a central function.
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Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Achieving awful compression with digits of pi
Compression is a really hard problem, and it attracts a lot of interesting ideas. There are some numbers whose digits contain all sequences of digits1. People have long hypothesized that pi is one such number; a proof remains elusive.
If we have a number which contains all sequences of digits, could we transmit a message using that? Instead of telling my friend Erika the message, I could send her the offset and length in some number where that message occurs, then she could reconstruct the message!
The problem is that you wind up with a much larger message than if you'd just sent what you wanted to in the first place. Let's take a look first at how you'd do such a ridiculous thing, then we'll see why it doesn't work and compute the compression ratio you might actually achieve.
Happy Pi Day!
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Futurism ☛ SXSW Audience Loudly Boos Video About How AI Is Awesome
"The incredibly pro-AI sizzle reel today at SXSW being loudly booed and told to fuck off by roughly a thousand people in the Paramount was heartwarming," RogerEbert.com editor Brian Tallerico tweeted. "Read the room, people."
Indeed, as one video shot by Marcelo Pico of the Talk Film Society blog and podcast demonstrates, people straight up heckled the unnecessary commentary as soon as the words "artificial intelligence" were uttered.
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Vadim Kravcenko ☛ Why software projects fail
Some of you know that I work in the agency business — how that translates to my technical experience is that I used to work on many highly different projects over the years — in contrast to a product-based company where you work on a single product, your whole career. As one of my friends, an agency owner, said: “A year in the agency equals three years in the product company.” You can agree or disagree with that statement, but my life is filled with many different projects on a daily basis from various domains with different vendors and clients.
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CS Monitor ☛ The SAT is making a comeback at some top colleges
Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth are among the highly selective colleges reinstating a testing requirement, saying it will help low-income students. Most other universities are keeping the tests optional, citing the same reason. Who’s right?
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Hardware
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CNX Software ☛ 600 MHz STM32H7R/S Cortex-M7 MCUs feature 620KB SRAM, 64KB boot flash, optional NeoChrom GPU
STMicro has launched the high-performance 600 MHz STM32H7R/S Arm Cortex-M7 microcontrollers: the STM32H7R3/S3 General-purpose MCU lines, and STM32H7R7/S7 graphics MCU lines adding a NeoChrom 2.5D GPU. Both ship with a large 620KB SRAM and a small 64KB boot flash.
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The Register UK ☛ Chinese spies want to steal IP [sic] by backdooring safe locks
Most commercially available safes include manufacturer reset codes for their locks to help consumers if they lose or forget the code they set. However, government agencies and law enforcement can request access to these codes – usually via a warrant or subpoena, and ostensibly to help investigate a crime or address some sort of national security concern.
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Chuck Grimmett ☛ Workbench build
I laminated them in 3 sets of 7 boards each so they’d fit through my 12″ planer. I laid them out, rolled glue on one side of each board, and clamped them together.
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Ruben Schade ☛ How do do you connect retrocomputers to the web?
The more meaningful one is that retrocomputers are an escape. They’re a way for me to scratch my itch for technical tinkering and learning without any pretence of productivity. I have a rewarding and interesting job, but I also need a break.
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Hackaday ☛ Bonkers Nerf Blaster Sprays Balls Everywhere
Nerf blasters are fun toys, to be sure. However, they’re limited by factors like price and safety and what Hasbro thinks parents will put up with. Few caregivers would ever countenance a build like this one from [ItllProbablyWork].
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Hackaday ☛ Making Floating Point Calculations Less Cursed When Accuracy Matters
An unfortunate reality of trying to represent continuous real numbers in a fixed space (e.g. with a limited number of bits) is that this comes with an inevitable loss of both precision and accuracy. Although floating point arithmetic standards – like the commonly used IEEE 754 – seek to minimize this error, it’s inevitable that across the range of a floating point variable loss of precision occurs. This is what [exozy] demonstrates, by showing just how big the error can get when performing a simple division of the exponential of an input value by the original value. This results in an amazing error of over 10%, which leads to the question of how to best fix this.
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Hackaday ☛ Retrotechtacular: Air Mail For The Birds
Today, if you want to send a message to a distant location, you’ll probably send an e-mail or a text message. But it hasn’t always been that easy. Military commanders, in particular, have always needed ways to send messages and were early adopters of radio and, prior to that, schemes like semaphores, drums, horns, Aldis lamps, and even barrels of water to communicate over distances.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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RTL ☛ AGCM watchdog: Italy fines TikTok 10 mn euros for failing to protect minors
"The company has failed to implement appropriate mechanisms to monitor content published on the platform, particularly those that may threaten the safety of minors and vulnerable individuals," the AGCM watchdog said in a statement.
"Moreover, this content is systematically re-proposed to users as a result of their algorithmic profiling, stimulating an ever-increasing use of the social network."
The fine has been imposed on three units of China's Bytedance group, namely Ireland's TikTok Technology, TikTok Information Technologies UK and TikTok Italy.
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India Times ☛ Tiktok fines: Italy regulator fines TikTok $11 million over inadequate checks on harmful content
Italy's antitrust regulator said on Thursday it has fined three TikTok units 10 million euros ($10.94 million) in total for not checking adequately content on its platform.
"TikTok has not taken adequate measures to prevent the spreading of such content, and has not fully complied with the guidelines it has adopted, reassuring customers that the platform is a 'safe' space," the watchdog said in a statement.
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The Register UK ☛ Advanced tech is harming worker wellness, study finds
A survey of UK workers suggests that quality of life declines as exposure to newer technology including wearables, robotics, and AI rises in the workplace.
The study, published by the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW), quizzed thousands of workers to come up with its conclusion, which it said has significant implications for policy, regulation, and employers.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Fined in Italy—$11M+ Fine for Harm to Minors
Just a day after the U.S. House passed a resolution to force ByteDance to divest from Fentanylware (TikTok) or face a ban—TikTok was fined by Italy’s consumer protection authority. The AGCM fined Fentanylware (TikTok) €10 million ($11M+) following an investigation into how its algorithm works.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Security Week ☛ Europe’s World-First Hey Hi (AI) Rules Get Final Approval From Lawmakers. Here’s What Happens Next
Lawmakers in the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Artificial Intelligence Act, five years after regulations were first proposed.
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India Times ☛ artificial intelligence: Europe one step away from landmark AI rules after lawmakers' vote
Europe moved closer to adopting the world's first artificial intelligence rules on Wednesday as EU lawmakers endorsed a provisional agreement for a technology whose use is rapidly growing across a wide swathe of industries and in everyday life.
Three years in the making, the AI Act comes as generative AI systems such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's chatbot Gemini become more popular, fuelling concerns about misinformation and fake news.
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Futurism ☛ This Humanoid Robot Powered by OpenAI Is Almost Scary
Following the announcement of its partnership with OpenAI, tech startup Figure has released a new clip of its humanoid robot, dubbed Figure 01, chatting with an engineer as it puts away the dishes.
And we can't tell if we're impressed — or terrified.
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Creative Commons ☛ EU adopts landmark Artificial Intelligence Act
Yesterday, the European Parliament (EP) adopted the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), the world’s first piece of legislation comprehensively regulating artificial intelligence (AI).
Creative Commons (CC) has been actively engaged with EU policymakers on the AIA for the past years, especially as copyright issues arose front and center in the negotiations last June. In this blog post, we share a few high-level assessments of where the text landed across various key aspects impacting the commons as well as some thoughts on what lies ahead.
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Reason ☛ ByteDance Won’t Part With TikTok Algorithm if U.S. Forces Sale
And, interestingly, it's not just ByteDance's hesitation to part with its algorithm, so much as it is China itself that has purportedly "issued regulations that appear designed to require government review before any of ByteDance's algorithms could be licensed to outsiders," per The New York Times, which would almost certainly not happen (especially if sold to an American buyer).
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CoryDoctorow ☛ The Coprophagic AI crisis
Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day: [...]
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JURIST ☛ EU Parliament passes first-ever AI regulatory act
The act is expected to become EU law by May or June after endorsement by the European Council and will be fully enforceable two years after its adoption. The legal framework will apply to both public and private actors inside and outside the EU, so long as the AI system is placed on the EU market or affects EU citizens. The act has the potential to have a global impact in regulating AI, similar to the impact of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in data protection. On the other hand, the digital trade association Digital Europe warned against possible overregulation and high compliance costs for companies.
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Futurism ☛ Google Bans Its Dimwit Chatbot From Answering Any Election Questions
In further efforts to defang its prodigal chatbot, Google has set up guardrails that bar its Gemini AI from answering any election questions in any country where elections are taking place this year — even, it seems, if it's not about a specific country's campaigns.
In a blog post, Google announced that it would be "supporting the 2024 Indian General Election" by restricting Gemini from providing responses to any election-related query "out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic."
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Futurism ☛ State Department Report Warns of AI Apocalypse, Suggests Limiting Compute Power Allowed for Training
While we have yet to reach the stage at which AI models can compete with humans on an intellectual level, commonly known as AGI, many have argued that it's only a matter of time — and we should get ahead of the problem by having the government intervene before it's too late.
It's only the latest instance of experts warning of AI tech posing an "existential risk" to humanity, including Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun and a so-called "godfather" of the tech, Google's head of AI in the United Kingdom Demis Hassabis, and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
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Time ☛ AI Poses Extinction-Level Risk, State-Funded Report Says
The U.S. government must move “quickly and decisively” to avert substantial national security risks stemming from artificial intelligence (AI) which could, in the worst case, cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species,” says a report commissioned by the U.S. government published on Monday.
“Current frontier AI development poses urgent and growing risks to national security,” the report, which TIME obtained ahead of its publication, says. “The rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilize global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons.” AGI is a hypothetical technology that could perform most tasks at or above the level of a human. Such systems do not currently exist, but the leading AI labs are working toward them and many expect AGI to arrive within the next five years or less.
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Raspberry Pi ☛ Velo AI smart bike light
In moving from radar to a camera-based solution, the aim was to create a device that could tell the cyclist “a lot more about what’s going on in the world and do a lot of things that the radar can’t do”. The device would need to help cyclists by providing situational awareness and alerts about nearby vehicles. This includes the ability to distinguish, using computer vision algorithms, between different vehicle types, as well as to estimate their relative speed and to identify and predict driver behaviour.
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Teleport ☛ Join Teleport at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024
Cloud Native isn’t just Kubernetes anymore, if it ever was. It’s developer laptops, bastion hosts, databases, VMs, lambdas, that Technical Account Manager who just needs to run a quick database query on a customer, that one Windows VM for that one app that only runs on Windows, etc. Each thing needs securing, and without a unified easy-to-use solution, people get slowed down. And when they get slowed down, they just work around the security solution, defeating the purpose.
With Teleport, people log in once to manage their access to every environment. Because Teleport enables a Zero Trust system, they don’t need to hop between VPNs or cloud accounts. Onboarding is fast using roles and Just-in-Time Access.
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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WhichUK ☛ Beware of dodgy investment ads on Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram
Scam ads invite you to join WhatsApp investment groups
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The Straits Times ☛ Johor police officially request to call up couple from S’pore in alleged checkpoint extortion
Johor police have made an official request to the Singapore Consulate-General’s office in JB to help identify the Facebook (Farcebook) users.
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Online investment scams: Inside a fake trading platform
Online investment scams are a global, growing, and uniquely pernicious threat. In newly released data, the Federal Trade Commission attributed more than $4.6 billion of US fraud losses in 2023 to investment scams, more than any other fraud category, and a 21% increase in 2022. The FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report notes that investment scams were “once again the costliest type of crime tracked by IC3”.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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Krebs On Security ☛ CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms
The data privacy company Onerep.com bills itself as a Virginia-based service for helping people remove their personal information from almost 200 people-search websites. However, an investigation into the history of onerep.com finds this company is operating out of Belarus and Cyprus, and that its founder has launched dozens of people-search services over the years.
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TMZ ☛ Pornhub Blocks Access For Texas Users Amid Age-Verification Legal Battle
Not everything is bigger in Texas it seems ... 'cause the porn selection just got a heck of a lot smaller -- with Pornhub blocking access to would-be users in the Lone Star State.
The porn giant's not allowing users to hop on its site because of a new age verification legislation signed into law in Texas Thursday -- which went into effect immediately ... and, as a result, Pornhub.com is no longer available if users have a Texas IP address.
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Silicon Angle ☛ Pornhub pulls out of Texas amid age verification dispute
Pornhub in February was the sixth most visited website in the U.S., garnering more than 2.8 billion visits that month. It’s also the 14th most popular website in the world. Closing it to the second most populous state in the country will surely have caused some amount of distress, although considering an estimated 39% of Americans use a virtual private network, the news might not be so devastating for Texan pornography fans.
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404 Media ☛ Pornhub Pulls Out of Texas
In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, claiming it violated the state’s age verification law. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 1181 into law in June, which would require not only verification of age through government ID, but for all adult sites to display in large font a message claiming to be from Texas Health and Human Services about pseudoscientific “dangers” of porn. The health department claimed it has nothing to do with this law or the message it forces sites to display.
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The Verge ☛ Pornhub shuts down in Texas to protest age verification law
Last year, Texas enacted a previously blocked age verification law (HB 1181) that requires users to upload photos of their government IDs (or use another third-party verification service) before accessing a pornographic website. The law also requires porn sites to display health warnings that claim porn impairs “human brain development,” among other unproven issues. Texas sued Pornhub’s parent company Aylo in February, alleging that Pornhub failed to comply with the new law.
This isn’t the first time Pornhub has disabled its site in protest of age verification requirements. Last year, Pornhub blocked access to its site in Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. It also went dark in North Carolina and Montana in January.
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Gizmodo ☛ Pornhub Bans Texas
Back in February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, for failing to enforce the state’s age verification law. The legislation went into effect last September and requires adult sites like Pornhub to obtain digital identification for users verifying they are of legal age to view porn. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled in favor of Texas ruling that the state law doesn’t violate the First Amendment.
Aylo says it’s not finished in its legal battle for the right of every red-blooded adult American to access hardcore porn.
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The Hill ☛ Pornhub disables website in Texas after AG sues for not verifying users’ ages
Pornhub said safety and compliance are “at the forefront” of the company’s mission, but having users provide identification every time they want to access the site is “not an effective solution for protecting users online.” The adult content website argues the restrictions instead will put minors and users’ privacy at risk.
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Keenan ☛ Not to sound like a total hipster, but I definitely had a $1/month membership for awhile now
Perhaps I'm not your cup of tea. That's fine. I get it. I'm not my own cup of tea either a lot of the time, but only one of us has to live with me all the time. That being said, Jarrod has put together a list of sites who offer similar memberships, and one or more of those may be your cup of tea. Support them instead. I'm not picky. I just think it's nice when people make cool shit and other people reward the making of the cool shit.
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Rob Knight ☛ One a Month Club
Jarrod set up a site a few days ago, One a Month Club, which is a collection of people offering memberships at $1 a month. This was inspired by Manu's post about the same thing: [...]
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Confidentiality
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US Navy Times ☛ Witches be crazy: How one WWII ship led to the UK’s last witch trial
“The loss of HMS Barham, torpedoed off the coast of Egypt on 25 November 1941, was indeed kept quiet for a while, but letters of condolence were sent out to families of the 861 dead, asking them to keep the secret until the official announcement,” Donald wrote. “So, allowing for perhaps 10 people in each family, there were about 9,000 people who knew of the sinking; if each of them told only one other person, there were 20,000 people in the country aware of the sinking, and so on. ... Duncan simply picked up the gossip and decided to turn it into profit.”
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University of Toronto ☛ You might want to think about if your system serial numbers are sensitive
Recently, a commentator on my entry about what's lost when running the Prometheus host agent as a non-root user on Linux pointed out that if you do this, one of the things omitted (that I hadn't noticed) is part of the system DMI information. Specifically, you lose various serial numbers and the 'product UUID', which is potentially another unique identifier for the system, because Linux makes the /sys/class/dmi/id files with these readable only by root (this appears to have been the case since support for these was added to /sys in 2007). This got me thinking about whether serial numbers are something we should consider sensitive in general.
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Defence/Aggression
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Multiple subsea cable breaks causing internet chaos in South Africa
This is the second time in seven months that a major cable break along Africa’s coastline has severely impacted internet services in South Africa.
And the latest outage could not have come at a worse time, given that the Seacom cable, which connects South Africa to Europe along Africa’s east coast, was recently severed in the Red Sea, possibly as the result of a ship’s anchor. Repairs to the Seacom cable will take time as a result of the geopolitical instability in the region.
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Wired ☛ The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency
Utilizing laws like the National Emergencies Act, the Communications Act of 1934, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he would be able to wield power in ways this country has never seen. Furthermore, America’s vast surveillance state, which has regularly been abused, could theoretically be abused even further to surveil his perceived political enemies.
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The Telegraph UK ☛ Muslim groups that incite hatred to be named as extremists by Government
Muslim groups that incite hatred and undermine democracy will be named and shamed as extremists by the Government, Michael Gove will announce on Thursday.
The Communities Secretary will set out a new definition of non-violent extremism which officials will use to identify and publish a list of Islamist and far-Right groups.
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VOA News ☛ Taliban Expand Madrasas, May Never Reopen Girls' Secondary Schools
An Afghan education official says Taliban authorities may permanently close girls' secondary schools, promoting religious schools known as madrasas as an alternative.
The Taliban shut down girls' secondary schools in 2022, citing "religious and cultural" concerns.
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The Telegraph UK ☛ Foreign state ownership of UK newspapers to be banned amid UAE Telegraph takeover bid
RedBird IMI, a fund 75 per cent backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE vice-president, had positioned itself to take control of The Telegraph and The Spectator magazine by repaying the debts of the Barclay family, the current owners.
The takeover has been under scrutiny from the Government using existing powers to protect press freedom, but MPs and peers across Parliament have demanded tighter laws against foreign state control.
Peers argued during a debate in the House of Lords on Wednesday that letting a foreign state own a British newspaper would be “outrageous” and “inconceivable”.
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YLE ☛ NBI: Dozens of potentially dangerous individuals have crossed eastern border
A potentially dangerous person may be a member of an extremist organisation, their activities may indicate membership of an armed group or involvement in hostile activities, there may be an all-points bulletin or international arrest warrant for the individual, the individual may have used a forged travel document or may have been involved in human trafficking.
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India Times ☛ EU: EU targets TikTok, other apps over AI risk to elections
The EU on Thursday wielded a powerful new digital law to press TikTok, Facebook and six other platforms on the risk of AI to elections, including through deepfakes. The announcement looking at the AI risk to EU elections came a day after the European Parliament voted to adopt a new law that seeks to curb abuses of artificial intelligence.
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VOA News ☛ China’s Denial of TikTok Security Threat is Patently False
ByteDance, which spent about $21.3 million on federal lobbying trying to influence Washington decision-making, denies any connection with the Chinese government and will likely oppose the bill in court, claiming it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (freedom of speech). The legislation’s “fate in the Senate is uncertain,” as it has both supporters and opponents who raise concern the ban could be seen as an act of censorship, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“This bill is not about censorship, it’s about the inverse of censorship, which is propaganda and foreign propaganda pitting Americans against Americans,” said the legislation’s co-author Mike Gallagher, a Republican representing the state of Wisconsin.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Why is TikTok blocked in Hong Kong?
Whilst TikTok did not give an explicit reason for pulling out, the security law empowered police to demand the removal of online content if there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect it breaches the national security law. Police may require service providers to also provide relevant identification records or decryption assistance, on pain of a fine of up to HK$100,000 and six months behind bars.
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India Times ☛ tiktok ban: Explainer: Will TikTok be banned in the US and what is next for the bill?
House overwhelmingly passes bill to force ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. operations within six months, citing national security risks from Chinese influence. Senate's stance on the bill is awaited for further developments.
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India Times ☛ tiktok ban: US Senate not moving to fast-track House bill for TikTok divestiture
Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said in an interview with Reuters she wants legislation to address broad concerns about foreign apps that will hold up in court and is not sure the House bill goes far enough.
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France24 ☛ US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passes TikTok ban bill
But the fate of the bill is uncertain in the more cautious Senate, where some key figures are apprehensive of making such a drastic move against an app that has 170 million US users.
President Joe Biden will sign the bill, known officially as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, into law if it came to his desk, the White House has said.
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New Republic ☛ The Simple Reason Trump Is Suddenly Defending TikTok | The New Republic
Still, there’s little reason to believe that either politics or policy are behind Trump’s shift on TikTok. Instead, Trump was doing what he did again and again throughout his presidency: listening to a rich friend and then changing his policy advice based on their advice. In this case, the friend was Jeff Yass, a billionaire who has emerged as a powerful backer of Trump’s reelection effort. Yass, notably, also has a huge stake in TikTok—owning a reported 15 percent stake in the company, worth billions.
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NPR ☛ The House passed a TikTok ban bill. But is the app really a national security threat?
In the short term, users will likely not notice any changes. The app will work as it always does for the millions of Americans who enjoy it.
And even if the Senate passes a companion bill, and Biden signs it into law, there is a six-month deadline to sell, which could be prolonged by court challenges.
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India Times ☛ tiktok ban: From India to US, here’s a list of countries that have banned TikTok
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill that would force TikTok to cut ties with its China-based parent company Bytedance or face a ban in the United States.
The legislation comes as a major setback for the video-sharing app, which has been earlier questioned about its Chinese ownership.
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Security Week ☛ Bill That Could Ban TikTok Passed in the House. Here’s What to Know
Experts have said it will be challenging for ByteDance to sell TikTok in a few months.
If the company chooses not to sell, TikTok would be prohibited from app stores – such as those offered by Apple and Google – as well as web-hosting services until a divesture occurs, according to the bill.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ US politicians tighten the noose around TikTok
The US house of representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app, or face a ban, in the greatest threat to the app since the Trump administration.
The bill passed 352-65 in a bipartisan vote, but it faces a more uncertain path in the US senate where some favour a different approach to regulating foreign-owned apps posing security concerns. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the senate will review the legislation.
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The Scotsman ☛ TikTok ban: US House of Representatives passes Bill that could see app banned across America
The legislators contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the US any time it wants. The fear stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organisations to assist with intelligence gathering.
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Vox ☛ TikTok ban: The impact on users would stretch far beyond Gen Z
The vote came despite a long-running lobbying effort by the app’s parent company, ByteDance, to assuage lawmakers’ concerns over privacy and national security. That effort escalated last week when the app pushed its users to call and email their representatives, urging them to vote against the bill. The effort may have backfired, as callers flooded congressional phone lines and tipped ambivalent lawmakers into voting for the bill — but it also revealed the loyalty of the app’s user base.
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[Old] CS Monitor ☛ How the fall of Qaddafi gave rise to Europe's migrant crisis
Mr. Qaddafi was well aware of European alarm at the rising tide of migrants in his final years in power. He used it as a powerful wedge to improve his own standing. Back to 2004, Qaddafi began making deals with individual European states to control the tide of migrants. In August 2010, he visited his friend Silvio Berlusconi, then president of Italy, in Rome and said Europe would turn "black" without his help.
"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," Qaddafi said. "What will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans ... we don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."
Qaddafi had a handy solution. He offered to shut down his country and its coastal waters to the job seekers in exchange for €5 billion a year. He pointed to his work with Italy as proof he could get the job done. In June 2009, he signed a "friendship" agreement with Italy that involved joint naval patrols against migrants and Italy handing over migrants captured en route to Europe to Libya, no questions asked. The number of Africans caught trying to illegally enter Italy fell by more than 75 percent that year.
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VOA News ☛ Putin Denies Strategy to Spread Influence in Africa After Wagner 'Rebrand'
The analysis shows that Moscow has rebranded the Wagner group as the expeditionary corps of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, with a target of recruiting a further 40,000 troops to serve in the force. Its aim is to secure Russian interests overseas — including access to resources such as oil, gas and minerals — while also reducing Moscow's vulnerability to Western sanctions.
Russia colonialism
"What they're doing is just expanding colonialism in the Global South countries. And right now they are very much focused on African countries, but they have plans for Latin America as well, some Asian countries. They will also have political technologists, media experts, intelligence officers who are specialized in political warfare, economic operations. So, pretty much everything to be able not only to infiltrate those Global South countries, but also to establish pro-Russian regimes there," Danylyuk told VOA.
The RUSI report says Russia helped to foment military coups in parts of Africa and is now seeking to displace Western influence.
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US Navy Times ☛ Senators warn more visas are urgently needed for Afghans who aided US
The special immigrant visa, or SIV, program allows eligible Afghans who helped Americans despite great personal risk to themselves and their loved ones to apply for entry into America with their families. Eligible Afghans include interpreters for the U.S. military as well as individuals integral to the American embassy in Kabul.
While the program has existed since 2009, the number of applicants skyrocketed after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. With the Taliban now back in power, advocates say Afghans who helped the U.S. are often living in hiding and facing torture and death if they’re found.
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Reason ☛ Oklahoma Autopsy Finds That a Bullied Nonbinary Student Committed Suicide
After blaming the state's bathroom law, The New York Times says "it has never been clear" whether gender identity figured in the fight that preceded Nex Benedict's death.
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Defence Web ☛ Nigeria’s security problems deepen as Anglophone insurgency in Cameroon spills across border
Over the past two decades, Nigeria has grappled with multiple and complex national security threats, each posing a significant challenge to its stability.
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New York Times ☛ Widow Says MTA Workers Shared Photos of Slain Husband
Jakeba Dockery says graphic photos of her husband, Richard Henderson, after he was shot on a No. 3 train were shared online in violation of New York’s civil rights law.
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New York Times ☛ Israeli Strike in Lebanon Kills Hamas Leader, Hadi Ali Mustafa
It was the latest in a string of targeted killings there of what Israel has called senior figures from both Hezbollah and Hamas.
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EFF ☛ Why U.S. House Members Opposed the TikTok Ban Bill [Ed: EFF is lobbying for the Communist Party and corporations that fund EFF and do social control media "games"]
We're saying plenty about this misguided, unfounded bill, and we want you to speak out about it too, but we thought you should see what some of the House Members who opposed it said, in their own words.
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Techdirt ☛ Once More With Feeling: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional & Won’t Do Shit To Deal With Any Actual Threats [Ed: And "unconstitutional" by whose constitution? China's?]
Over the last few days, we’ve had a few posts about the latest attempt to ban TikTok in the US (and to people who say it’s only a divestiture bill: there is a ban in the language of the bill if ByteDance won’t divest).
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ FSB arrests four in St. Petersburg on terrorism charges, says they planned to poison Russian soldiers at the front — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Olga Mikhailova spent 16 years defending Alexey Navalny in court. Now her most famous client is dead, and she’s in exile. — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Explosion rocks Belgorod as Russian war bloggers report more border clashes with pro-Ukraine forces — Meduza
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Insight Hungary ☛ Orbán calls Trump "president of peace" after Florida meeting
Hungary's far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two engaged in discussions for an hour, followed by a dinner and a reception. Reflecting on their encounter, Orbán expressed his sentiments in a post-meeting video praising Trump as a "president of peace" and suggesting that the situation in Ukraine would be different had Trump remained in office. Orbán further reaffirmed his backing for Trump's potential re-election bid in November, underscoring the significance of American voters' decision-making process. He said, "It's up to the Americans to make their own decision, and we Hungarians have to be honest: it would be better for the world and better for Hungary if President Donald Trump returned."
Trump reciprocated Orbán's praises, calling him a great leader in Europe and globally. He labeled Orban "fantastic" and "the boss," while expressing his honor at their rendezvous. Orbán's visit to the United States also saw him engaging with figures from Trump's circle, including former advisor Steve Bannon, and former Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy. Additionally, Orbán participated in an event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank in Washington D.C., where he met with Heritage President Kevin Roberts, further cementing ties between Hungary and conservatives in the United States.
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Meduza ☛ Russian authorities threaten prison time for ‘Noon Against Putin’ protest, tell monitors to look for voters nervous around police — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘A well-designed simulation’: Kremlin insiders on how they think Russia’s upcoming presidential election will unfold — Meduza
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LRT ☛ Attack on Volkov is first case of political terrorism in Lithuania – official
The attack on Leonid Volkov, former chief of staff of Alexei Navalny, in Vilnius, is the first case of political terrorism in Lithuania, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Centre, has said.
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RFERL ☛ Lithuanian Official Dubs Attack On Navalny Aide 'Political Terrorism'
The attack on Leonid Volkov, a close aide of late Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, was a well-planned case of political terrorism, a senior Lithuanian official told the media on March 14.
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RFERL ☛ Navalny Associates Sentenced To Prison On Extremism Charges In Moscow
The Khoroshevsky district court in Moscow has sentenced two members of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team on extremism charges.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Strengthens Its Internet Controls in Critical Year for Putin
Facing an election this weekend and the fallout from Aleksei Navalny’s death and the war in Ukraine, Russia has intensified online censorship using techniques pioneered by China.
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The Kent Stater ☛ Putin is coasting towards another term in power. Here’s what you need to know about Russia’s presidential election
Russia is holding a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule throughout this decade and into the 2030s.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary: The West is still in denial over Russia
Western leaders have yet to grasp the true scale of the threat posed by Putin's Russia and are in danger of suffering an history defeat, warns the Secretary of Ukraine's Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov.
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Atlantic Council ☛ All the autocrat’s men: The court politics of Putin’s inner circle
A new Atlantic Council report by journalist Mikhail Zygar explores how Russia's war on Ukraine has affected Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
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France24 ☛ Polls open in Russian presidential election as Ukraine launches border attacks
Russia began voting on Friday in an election set to prolong President Vladimir Putin's rule by six more years, as Kyiv branded the vote a "farce" and launched a barrage of deadly attacks on border regions.
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France24 ☛ Anti-Putin Russian groups stage new cross-border raids into Russia
Pro-Ukrainian forces are conducting incursions into Russian territory, temporarily seizing a village in the border region of Kursk, reminiscent of similar operations in the spring of 2023 but occurring in a very different military and political context.
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France24 ☛ Ukraine ramps up border attacks as Putin urges Russians to vote in presidential election
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged Russians to vote for him at a "difficult" time for the country, hours before polls open and as Kyiv launched a barrage of deadly attacks on Russian border regions.
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RFERL ☛ Russians Begin Voting In A Presidential Election Whose Outcome Is Not In Doubt
Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
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teleSUR ☛ Vladimir Putin Inaugurates Construction of High-Speed Railroad
The president through videoconference officiated the inauguration ceremony of the work in which the foundation stone of the work was placed.
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teleSUR ☛ Putin Urges Russians to Vote in Upcoming Presidential Election
He confirmed that the 2024 election will also take place in the Crimean peninsula, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
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New York Times ☛ What to Know About Putin and Russia’s Presidential Vote
The presidential vote in Russia begins on Friday and lasts through Sunday, and although it features the trappings of a horse race, it is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum.
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New York Times ☛ Friday Briefing: Putin’s Re-Election
Also, a top U.S. senator calls for Israeli elections.
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Latvia ☛ Over half of Latvian public think aid to Ukraine should be maintained
The majority of Latvian population believe that Latvia's assistance to Ukraine should be maintained at its current level or increased, but a majority of Russian-speakers in Latvia have a different opinion, a public opinion poll conducted by the research centre Norstat in cooperation with LSM.lv suggests.
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Latvia ☛ Increasing number of pro-Russian vandalism cases in Rīga
The Security, Order and Corruption Prevention Committee of Riga City Council has received an unusually high number of reports of acts of vandalism in recent weeks - both vandalism of pro-Ukraine posters and pro-Russian aggression graffiti on the walls of buildings, Latvian Television reported on March 14.
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Latvia ☛ 20 Foreign Affairs Committees denounce Russia’s presidential elections
Twenty Chairmen of Foreign Affairs Committees from North America and Europe made a joint statement March 14, emphasising that the forthcoming presidential elections in Russia would be neither free nor fair, and would be marred by a comprehensive crackdown on the opposition and independent media, and that they consider conducting elections in Ukraine's occupied territories as entirely illegitimate and something that would not be recognized by the international community.
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Latvia ☛ Saeima condemns Russia's illegal elections
Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, on Thursday, March 14, adopted a statement categorically condemning the holding of elections by Russia on occupied Ukrainian territory.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Peace is impossible until Ukraine is safe from future Russian aggression
With Russia openly committed to destroying the Ukrainian state and nation, a durable peace will only prove possible once Ukraine's national security is guaranteed, writes Mykola Bielieskov.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Reducing Europe’s reliance on Russian energy imports: Key strategies under five scenarios
To better understand how the war’s conclusion—or lack thereof—will impact the options available to transatlantic policymakers, this report analyzes European security across five general scenarios—a Ukrainian victory, a negotiated settlement, a frozen conflict, a protracted conflict, and a Russian victory.
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France24 ☛ Scholz, Tusk and Macron set to meet in Berlin to mend differences over Ukraine
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will receive French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin on Friday after tensions between the leaders blew out into the open over differences on how to support Ukraine.
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France24 ☛ Macron warns Europe's security 'at stake' after uproar over Ukraine ground troops comment
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the Europe's security was "at stake" in Ukraine, warning that a Russian victory against Kyiv "would reduce Europe's credibility to zero".
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RFERL ☛ Russia Says Ukrainian Missiles Strike Belgorod Again
Russia attacked seven Ukrainian regions with 27 Shahed-type drones and eight missiles early on March 15, the Ukrainian military said, while Russia says Kyiv continued its attacks on the border region of Belgorod.
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RFERL ☛ Macron Again Declines To Rule Out Western Troops In Ukraine, But Says Not Needed Now
French President Emmanuel Macron on March 14 warned Western powers against showing any signs of weakness to Russia as he reiterated his position that sending Western troops into Ukraine shouldn't be ruled out.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Lawmakers Weigh Lend-Lease Program Favored By Trump As Ukraine Aid Compromise
U.S. lawmakers who have been working to find a way to pass a major military aid package for Ukraine say they are considering a proposal that would set up a lend-lease program favored by former President Donald Trump.
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RFERL ☛ Former Moscow Lawmaker Jailed For Opposing War 'Tortured' In Prison
Former Moscow municipal lawmaker Aleksei Gorinov, who is serving a seven-year prison term he was handed in July 2022 for opposing Russia's aggression against Ukraine, says that he is being regularly "tortured by guards."
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RFERL ☛ NATO's Stoltenberg Says Ukrainians Out Of Ammo, Not Courage
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged NATO member states to provide Kyiv with badly needed ammunition and military equipment as outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops struggle to hold off an increasingly intense Russian assault more than two years into Moscow's full-scale invasion.
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RFERL ☛ State Department's Miller Among Scores Of Americans Banned By Russia
Russia has banned more than 200 U.S. citizens -- including State Department spokesman Matthew Miller -- from entering the country in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Washington on Russians for their support of the Kremlin's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Drones Attack Ukraine's Kharkiv, Sumy Regions
Russian forces early on March 14 attacked Ukraine's northeastern regions of Sumy and Kharkiv with drones and a missile, causing damage to civilian infrastructure, regional officials reported.
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YLE ☛ Friday's papers: Ukrainian security deal, Tampere bike hangars, and ice swimming brrreakfast
Finland is currently negotiating a deal with Ukraine that will ensure long-term defence assistance.
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New York Times ☛ Orban Endangers Hungary’s Status as an Ally, U.S. Diplomat Says
The U.S. ambassador to Budapest raised the temperature in a long-running standoff, citing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s pro-Russia, anti-U.S. stance and opposition to supporting Ukraine.
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New York Times ☛ Ukraine, Stalled on the Battlefield, Strikes Russia’s Oil Industry
Ukrainian drone strikes have been able to hit refineries deep in Russian territory, indicating a new vulnerability. But it is unclear if that will affect the fighting.
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Latvia ☛ Rally against manganese ore transit to Russia in Rīga Thursday
On the evening of Thursday, March 14, a flasmob “Stop Bloody Transit” took place in Riga, as people gathered to protest against the transit of manganese ore to Russia via Latvia.
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Latvia ☛ Russia bans visits from people who don't want to go there
In a perfect illustration of its officials' demented state of mind, the Russian authorities have announced in grandiose fashion that they will not accept visits from a group of people who have no plan, desire or intention to visit Russia.
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Latvia ☛ One Russian-registered car seized last month in Latvia
On Thursday, March 14, a month has passed since vehicles bearing Russian license plates are prohibited from participating in road traffic in Latvia. During this time, the State Police recorded one offender – a car “Lada” was confiscated from the driver and a fine of EUR 750 was imposed.
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Latvia ☛ Security Service looks at possible link of museum arson to foreign services
The State Security Service (VDD) is currently assessing the possible connection of those detained in the case of the arson attempt of the Occupation Museum with the special services of Russia and Belarus, the head of the VDD, Normunds Mežviets, said in an interview on the Latvian Television program "Morning Panorama" on March 14.
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Atlantic Council ☛ ‘We still need to fight for democracy.’ Latvia’s prime minister on defending against Russian aggression.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council, Prime Minister Evika Siliņa discussed Latvia’s approach to bolstering security on NATO’s eastern flank.
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JURIST ☛ Russia bars entry to 227 US citizens in latest round of tit-for-tat sanctions
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday announced sanctions against 227 US citizens. The group comprises an eclectic mix of individuals, from elite university professors to security and aerospace executives.
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LRT ☛ LRT English Newsletter: Russia’s political terrorism
LRT English Newsletter – March 15, 2024
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian parliament ask EC to ban Russian, Belarusian grain imports
The Lithuanian parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution asking the European Commission to ban Russian and Belarusian grain imports into the European Union.
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LRT ☛ Lithuania’s Vičiūnai executives represented Russia in meeting with Cuban minister
Vičiūnai-Rus, a Sovetsk-based plant of Vičiūnai Group, a business group owned by the family of Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis, represented Russia’s food industry at a meeting with Cuban politicians in Moscow, LRT RADIO reports.
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RFERL ☛ Supporters Of Russia's Would-Be Anti-War Presidential Candidate Under Pressure
On the eve of Russia's presidential election, activists supporting would-be anti-war presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin faced pressure as judges handed out sentences for minor offenses and police searched their homes.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Envoy Says Concerns About Hungary's Ties To Russia 'Cannot Be Ignored'
The U.S. ambassador to Hungary has warned Budapest about its expanding relationship with Russia and raised "legitimate security concerns" in a speech marking the 25th anniversary of Hungary joining NATO.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Believed To Have Jammed Signal On U.K. Minister's Plane
Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on an aircraft used by Defense Minister Grant Shapps to travel from Poland back to Britain, a government source and journalists traveling with him said.
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RFERL ☛ Top Czech Diplomat Uses UN Debate To Demand Moscow Free RFE/RL Journalist Kurmasheva
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky called on Moscow during a United Nations debate to release RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who has been held in Russian custody for almost five months on charges that she, her employer, and her supporters reject.
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RFERL ☛ Kyrgyz Lawmakers Approve Final Reading Of Controversial 'Foreign Agents' Bill
The Kyrgyz parliament has approved without debate the third and final reading of a controversial bill that would allow authorities to register organizations as "foreign representatives" in a way that critics say mirrors repressive Russian legislation on "foreign agents."
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RFERL ☛ At Least One Dead In Far East Helicopter Crash
A helicopter carrying 20 people, including three crew members, crash-landed in Russia's Far Eastern Magadan region, killing one person and seriously injuring another two, rescue services reported on March 14.
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teleSUR ☛ Four Candidates Contest the Presidency of Russia
The 2024 election will use an electronic remote voting system that will be available in 29 regions.
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YLE ☛ Supreme Administrative Court dismisses border closure complaints
Finland's top administrative court ruled that Russian-speaking residents did not have grounds to appeal the government's border control decisions.
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RFERL ☛ Belarus Halts Lithuanian Imports In Response To Border Closures
Belarus said on March 14 it was blocking a range of imports from Lithuania in retaliation for its neighbor closing two more border checkpoints.
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RFERL ☛ Catholic Religious Instructor In Belarus Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison
A court in Minsk has sentenced a Roman Catholic religious instructor, Uladzislau Beladzed, to three years in prison amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent, the Christian Vision group said on Telegram.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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EFF ☛ Making the Law Accessible in Europe and the USA
Earlier this month, the European Union Court of Justice ruled that harmonized standards are a part of EU law, and thus must be accessible to EU citizens and residents free of charge.
While it might seem like common sense that the laws that govern us should be freely accessible, this question has been in dispute in the EU for the past five years, and in the U.S. for over a decade. At the center of this debate are technical standards, developed by private organizations and later incorporated into law. Before they were challenged in court, standards-development organizations were able to limit access to these incorporated standards through assertions of copyright. Regulated parties or concerned citizens checking compliance with technical or safety standards had to do so by purchasing these standards, often at significant expense, from private organizations. While free alternatives, like proprietary online “reading rooms,” were sometimes available, these options had their own significant downsides, including limited functionality and privacy concerns.
In 2018, two nonprofits, Public.Resource.Org and Right to Know, made a request to the European Commission for access to four harmonized standards—that is, standards that apply across the European Union—pertaining to the safety of toys. The Commission refused to grant them access on the grounds that the standards were copyrighted.
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The Dissenter ☛ DOJ Spends Around $40 Million Every Year To Help Agencies Hide Records
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Quartz ☛ Dead Boeing whistleblower John Barnett's lawyers cast doubt on suicide
Ex-Boeing quality manager John Barnett was found dead on Saturday shortly after he gave evidence in a case against the American plane maker in South Carolina. Now, lawyers representing the 62-year-old say “no one can believe” he took his own life when the case was nearing its end.
Barnett had been embroiled in a legal battle against American plane manufacturer Boeing after he began calling out the company for its safety and quality control practices. Barnett, who worked at the company for more than 30 years, had previously highlighted issues with oxygen tanks on the 787 aircraft that meant one in four breathing masks may not function in an emergency situation.
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Environment
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DeSmog ☛ How $9 Billion From Taxpayers Fueled Plastics Production – and Illegal Pollution
Through billions in tax breaks and subsidies, taxpayers in Louisiana, Texas, and other states have supported the construction or expansion of dozens of facilities manufacturing plastics in the United States since 2012. However, many of these plants have also repeatedly exceeded legal limits on the air pollution they release into surrounding communities, disproportionately affecting people of color. That’s according to an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) report published on Thursday.
For instance, in 2015, then-Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal welcomed Indorama Ventures — one of the world’s biggest producers of single-use plastic — to the state with a $1.5 million grant to renovate a dormant petrochemical plant in Westlake, across the Calcasieu River from Lake Charles. Indorama also received an industrial tax exemption worth $73 million, absolving the Thai-based corporation from paying property taxes for 10 years that would have gone to local schools, fire departments, and the sheriff’s office.
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Idiomdrottning ☛ Fake good news about our real bad habits
We absolutely need policy-level change and regulation that can be enforced in a way that industry and billionaires have to obey.
And getting ready for such change is one thing we can start doing today, while we’re pushing for such change.
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Energy/Transportation
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Hackaday ☛ Building A Hydraulic Loader For A Lawn Tractor
Lawn tractors are a great way to mow a large yard or small paddock. They save you the effort of pushing a mower around and they’re fun to drive, to boot. However, they can be even more fun with the addition of some extra hardware. The hydraulic loader build from [Workshop from Scratch] demonstrates exactly how.
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Hackaday ☛ New Brains Save 12 V Fridge From The Scrap Heap
Recently [nibbler]’s Evakool 55L vehicle fridge started to act strangely, reporting crazy temperature errors and had no chance of regulating. The determination was that the NTC thermistor was toast, and rather than trying to extricate and replace this part, it was a lot easier to add a new one at a suitable location
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India Times ☛ us digital currencies: Countries closing in on digital currencies but US lagging: study
A total of 134 countries representing 98% of the global economy are now exploring digital versions of their currencies, with over half in advanced development, pilot or launch stages, a closely-followed study on Thursday showed.
The research by the US-based Atlantic Council think tank highlighted that all G20 countries except for Argentina are now in one of those far-along phases although, notably, the United States is falling increasingly behind.
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Wildlife/Nature
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New York Times ☛ Brazil’s Clashing Goals: Protect the Amazon and Pump Lots More Oil
State-owned Petrobras could soon be the world’s third-biggest oil producer, in stark contrast to the country’s promises to fight climate change and slow Amazon destruction.
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Pro Publica ☛ Listen to All Episodes of “Timber Wars Season 2: Salmon Wars”
Salmon are essential to Columbia River tribal people. These fish represent not only a food source but a way of life. As a white kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Tony Schick heard a lot about salmon — how important they are to this region, and how much trouble they’re in now. But the history he learned was not the whole story. As an investigative reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica, he’s been working to uncover and understand a more sinister version of events. And along the way, he connected with a guy named Randy Settler and his family.
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Overpopulation
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International Business Times ☛ Tenerife Tourists Beware: Water Shortage Declared in Popular Spanish Destination
However, that popularity amongst tourists appears to have come at a price as a drought was reported by the Tenerife Island Water Council. This recent emergency has led to government officials looking at ways to preserve more water when tourists touch down in Tenerife and stop them contributing to further water shortages.
Last month's high temperatures led to Tenerife experiencing the hottest February the island had seen since the 1960s. Whilst, hotter temperatures do lead to more visitors arriving and therefore more revenue towards the island, tourists end up using much more water than they necessarily should.
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The Hill ☛ ‘Invisible’ water losses in California’s agricultural heartland now match volume of giant reservoir: Study
“It’s water that’s effectively disappearing,” senior author Joshua Viers, a professor and associate dean of research at the University of California Merced School of Engineering, told The Hill. “It goes unnoticed, but it’s very real.”
The valley is “a critical region for global fruit and nut production,” due to its Mediterranean climate, per the study. California as a whole provides 81 percent of the world’s almonds, 42 of its pistachios and 26 percent of global processing tomatoes.
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Finance
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Robert Reich ☛ Remember when the media said “greedflation” was a fringe theory?
Now looking back, it’s undeniable.
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Techdirt ☛ IRS Direct File Program Goes Live In 12 States
It’s been a long and incredibly frustrating road to get here, but the IRS’ free Direct File pilot program is now live this tax season in 12 states. We have had a list of posts we have done on the topic of tax filings, most of which revolve around Intuit and some other tax-prep organizations’ lobbying efforts with the federal government to keep people from being able to do this simple, free tax return activity at all, so jealous were they of the profits they have collected by making such options non-existent. Intuit, in particular, has been awful on this subject, having been subject to fines from the FTC for advertising free tax prep services and then making them as difficult to find as possible so that the company could instead coax the public into paid services.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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Democracy Now ☛ Ramesh Srinivasan: TikTok Crackdown, Fueled by Anti-China Sentiment, Misses Real Threat of Big Tech
In a rare bipartisan effort, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday requiring TikTok to be sold by its China-based owner, ByteDance, or face a ban throughout the United States. Backers claim the popular social media app could give the Chinese government access to U.S. residents’ personal data and potentially affect the 2024 elections. The fight over TikTok comes at a time of rising anti-China rhetoric in both major parties, as well as alarm among conservatives that content supportive of Palestinian rights and critical of Israel is popular with many young users of the app. The fate of the TikTok legislation now rests in the Senate, and President Joe Biden says he will sign it into law if it reaches his desk. Former President Donald Trump, who tried to crack down on TikTok while in office, now opposes the effort. “It is singling out TikTok and China without any evidence whatsoever that they are engaging in any nefarious or spying activity,” Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA, says of the legislation. “What we need is expansive, comprehensive digital rights legislation that really applies to every social media company and gives Americans power over their own data.”
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Silicon Angle ☛ Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin assembling consortium to buy TikTok
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is organizing an investor consortium to buy Fentanylware (TikTok) from its parent company ByteDance Ltd. Mnuchin, who is the managing director of private equity firm Liberty Strategic Capital, detailed the effort in an interview on CNBC today.
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New York Times ☛ Possible Fentanylware (TikTok) Sale Has Wall St. Abuzz as Mnuchin Discusses Deal
Wall Street is abuzz about a potential deal, but the large price tag for the app is one of many factors that could limit the number of suitors.
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Digital Music News ☛ Additional Investor Groups Express Interest in Fentanylware (TikTok) Buyout As Forced-Sale Bill Faces ‘Slower Pace’ in the Senate
Following reports of former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick’s interest in purchasing Fentanylware (TikTok) – with the investor group at hand potentially including Proprietary Chaffbot Company – others are looking to acquire the app as well.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US ambassador to China says Beijing’s position on potential Fentanylware (TikTok) ban ‘supremely ironic’
The US ambassador to China said Friday that Beijing’s position on a potential Fentanylware (TikTok) ban in the United States was “supremely ironic” given the ruling Communist Party’s censorship of online platforms within its borders.
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The Straits Times ☛ US ambassador says Beijing’s stance on Fentanylware (TikTok) ban ‘supremely ironic’
He said Beijing's stance was unjustified as many Western Web platforms are blocked in China.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Banning TikTok: Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
Along with my work in intellectual property, I also spent a lot of time focusing on internet law issues and their interrelation with AI, privacy, speech and security. We have seen growing calls for action surrounding Section 230 modifications and social control media censorship, and several pending Supreme Court cases could reshape the legal landscape governing online platforms.
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New York Times ☛ TikTok Turns to Creators to Fight Possible Ban [Ed: Fentanylware (TikTok) as a 'commie' mobilisation tool, reaffirming what's alleged about it]
Dozens of popular figures on the app have traveled to Washington to urge lawmakers to oppose a bill that could result in the platform being blocked in the United States.
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Pro Publica ☛ Chinese Organized Crime Dominates America’s Illicit Marijuana Market
It seemed an unlikely spot for a showdown between Chinese gangsters: a marijuana farm on the prairie in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma.
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Pro Publica ☛ Customer Service Company Arise to Pay $2 Million to Workers to Settle Lawsuit
Arise Virtual Solutions, a work-at-home customer service company, will pay $2 million to workers in the District of Columbia to settle a lawsuit alleging the company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime.
The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, will pay an additional $940,000 to the District of Columbia in civil penalties and stop operating there.
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Quartz ☛ Apple boosts AI push by buying Canadian startup DarwinAI
The iPhone and Macbook maker acquired DarwinAI, a Waterloo, Ontario-based AI startup earlier this year, with dozens of employees joining Apple’s AI division, Bloomberg reported. The Canadian company has developed AI tech for visually inspecting components during manufacturing. It’s also developed technology meant to make AI systems smaller and faster.
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Google ☛ An update on our preparations for the DMA
Over the last few months we have been seeking feedback on our changes from the European Commission and from stakeholders like developers, advertisers and companies who will be affected by them. While we support many of the DMA's ambitions around consumer choice and interoperability, the new rules involve difficult trade-offs, and we're concerned that some of these rules will reduce the choices available to people and businesses in Europe.
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The Verge ☛ CIA allegedly made fake social media accounts to troll the Chinese government
The CIA allegedly launched a secret operation to troll Chinese officials and turn public opinion against them through leaked intelligence and negative news on social media.
Reuters reports the operation began in 2019 and was also aimed at causing paranoia within Xi Jinping’s government. CIA agents reportedly made fake social media accounts to spread rumors, such as allegations that Communist Party members hid ill-gotten wealth outside the country, and criticize Chinese government initiatives, like saying a program financing infrastructure projects in other countries was corrupt.
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Euractive ☛ YouTube’s algorithm promoted right-wing content in the 2024 Finnish elections
The study looked at what YouTube recommends in its “Up Next” category, which suggests the next video to play as well as search recommendations for political terms.
Faktabaari and CheckFirst simulated daily YouTube searches for 77 Finnish words connected to key election topics, gathering data from 10 locations in Finland between 24 January and 11 February 2024.
According to the study, a “prominent effect” of YouTube’s recommendation system is to promote videos related to the Finns Party.
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Rolling Stone ☛ Elon Musk Accused of Trying to 'Distort’ SEC Twitter Investigation
In the SEC’s response to a motion filed by Elon Musk, the agency wrote that he “continues to distort the true scope of this investigation — his only hope for establishing that the SEC is not seeking relevant evidence” and that he “continues to misrepresent the relevance of his additional testimony.”
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Wired ☛ Regulators Need AI Expertise. They Can't Afford It
Church worries that competition between private companies will also widen the gap further between the private and public sector. “I personally believe the government should be attracting the best and the brightest,” he says, “but how can you convince the best and the brightest to take a massive pay cut?”
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Quartz ☛ Donald Trump asked Elon Musk about buying Truth Social
While the conversation between the former president and Musk — who also owns SpaceX — did not lead to a deal, the conversation illustrates a closer relationship than previously known. The controversial duo met earlier this month in Palm Beach, Florida, along with what the Post describes as “a few high powered” Republican donors. After the meeting was reported by The New York Times, Musk wrote on X that “Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President.”
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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The Atlantic ☛ What’s Happening in Russia Is Not an Election
If you read global news, you’ll be told that Russia is holding an election this weekend. That’s not true. Millions of Russians will be voting, but not in an election: Call it an “election-style event.”
Terminology matters. Many people wrongly see elections as synonymous with democracy because the same word is used to refer to wildly different events. A genuine election, when it takes place, is one of the fundamental pillars that uphold democracy. But a rigged contest marks the death of democracy and renders all the other essential pillars irrelevant, because the people no longer have a meaningful say over who governs.
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New York Times ☛ TikTok Turns to Creators to Fight Possible Ban
Facing a possible ban in the United States, TikTok has scrambled to deploy perhaps its most powerful weapon: its creators.
The hugely popular video service began recruiting dozens of creators at the end of last week, asking them to travel to Washington to fight a bill being debated in Congress. Under the proposal, TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, would need to sell the app or it would be blocked in the United States.
Many of the creators have met with lawmakers and posted videos about their opposition to the bill with the hashtag #KeepTikTok, often with the irreverent humor the app is known for.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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JURIST ☛ India blocks YouTube access to Canadian investigative documentary on killing of Sikh activist
CBC reported Wednesday that India blocked access on YouTube and X to a Canadian investigative documentary focused on the alleged involvement of the Indian government in the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed last June in British Columbia, Canada.
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VOA News ☛ China's Own Media Harassed by Authorities While Reporting Hebei Blast
Chinese reporters, often thought of as mouthpieces for Beijing, appeared to be pushed out of that role Wednesday when authorities physically intervened while several state media reporters were gathering news or doing live coverage from the scene of a deadly blast in Hebei province.
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JURIST ☛ Book ban attempts in US libraries and schools hit record high in 2023: national library group
The American Library Association (ALA) announced on Thursday that censorship demands and book ban attempts in public libraries and schools hit a record high in 2023. The ALA documented 1,247 demands to ban 4,240 different books. This is a 65 percent increase from 2022, when 2,571 books faced censorship demands. In 17 states, book ban attempts targeted more than 100 titles. The ALA said this is “the highest levels ever documented” by the group.
Public libraries saw a particular increase in censorship demands, with a 92 percent increase from 2022. This made up 46 percent of all book challenges in 2023. Censorship demands in school libraries, which were previously the main focus of book ban attempts, increased by 11 percent.
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Axios ☛ More books were targeted for censorship in 2023
By the numbers: 4,240 different titles were targeted for censorship last year, compared with 2,571 in 2022 — which was then a record.
• Yes, but: The number of overall censorship demands dropped slightly, to 1,247 in 2023 from 1,269 in 2022.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Court upholds Tiananmen vigil organisers' conviction over nat sec data request
The trio – who were part of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual vigils to remember victims of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown – were jailed for four and a half months last March after refusing to comply with a notice from national security police issued in August 2021.
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New York Times ☛ Dancing and Jumping Over Fire, Iranians Use Holiday to Defy Rules
Dancing, especially for men and women together, is banned in public in Iran and has long been a form of protest.
In many places, the gatherings turned political, with crowds chanting, “Freedom, freedom, freedom,” “Death to the dictator” and “Get lost, clerics,” according to videos and interviews with participants. In the city of Rasht in northern Iran, a crowd booed security officers who drove by in motorcycles, videos showed.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Media mogul Jimmy Lai’s firms helped protesters get global campaign off ground in 2019, court hears
Two companies linked to Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai helped an activist group get a global advertising campaign off the ground during the pro-democracy protests and unrest in 2019, a court has heard during Lai’s national security trial.
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VOA News ☛ Husband of American Journalist Jailed in Russia Brings Campaign to Washington
Kurmasheva is a Prague-based editor at the Tatar-Bashkir service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL. The journalist and her employer reject the charges, which carry a combined maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
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CPJ ☛ Ahead of expected verdict, CPJ calls prosecution of DRC journalist Stanis Bujakera 'outrageous’
Bujakera, a Congolese citizen and a permanent U.S. resident, worked as a correspondent for privately owned Jeune Afrique and Reuters news agency, while also being deputy director of publication for the DRC-based news website Actualite.cd. He was arrested by police in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, on September 8, 2023, and authorities charged him with spreading falsehoods, forgery, the use of forged documents, and distributing false documents under the combined application of the DRC’s penal code and a new digital code and press law.
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IndieWeb ☛ POSSE - IndieWeb
POSSE is an abbreviation for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, the practice of posting content on your own site first, then publishing copies or sharing links to third parties (like social media silos) with original post links to provide viewers a path to directly interacting with your content.
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VOA News ☛ Moscow Targets VOA Reporter in Latest Round of Sanctions Against Americans
Other journalists who were sanctioned included The Washington Post’s Joseph Marks, Joseph Menn, Ellen Nakashima and Tim Starks. Robert Worth from The New York Times was also on the list.
Seldin directed VOA to the outlet’s public relations team.
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Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US-funded news outlet Radio Free Asia to exit HK - reports
Local media including HK01 and the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday that RFA will cease operations in Hong Kong by the end of March. Some employees will be transferred to Taipei in Taiwan or Washington DC in the US, while others will be laid off, the reports said.
Citing internal sources, HK01 said that the company told staff in late February that the media outlet would shut down the Hong Kong branch. It currently has four full-time employees and three or four part-time workers, local media reported.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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Pro Publica ☛ Virginia Lawmakers Approve Commission to Examine Black Families’ Displacement by Universities
The Virginia legislature has approved creating a statewide commission to investigate the role of public colleges and universities in displacing Black communities.
The legislature’s action represents a milestone for the budding national movement to seek compensation for families dispossessed by university expansion. It follows a 2023 series by ProPublica and the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, which showed that universities nationwide have uprooted tens of thousands of families of color, contributing to Black land loss and lagging rates of Black home ownership. The series, which detailed how the creation and expansion of Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, swallowed up a Black neighborhood, spurred city and university leaders there to create a similar task force in January.
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RFA ☛ Three years on, whereabouts of Tibetan poet is a mystery
More than three years after the arrest of a popular Tibetan writer and poet in northwestern China, police have not provided any details about his whereabouts, his sentence or his well-being, despite repeated appeals by his family for information, two sources told Radio Free Asia.
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Quartz ☛ Dollar General, Target, Ross, and Kohl's give mixed signals on self-checkout
Overall, the self-checkout craze does seem to be waning. POS specialist ScanSource CEO Mike Baur recently said his company’s POS customers have grown cooler towards the technology. “We still believe that, for us, it’s an area that we expect to continue to have point-of-sale, self-checkout opportunities, but they’re going to be smaller,” he said on a recent earnings call. “The larger retailers acted first. And what we’re seeing now is the price points and the customers are smaller than they were in the prior year.”
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Atlantic Council ☛ Why the Taliban’s persecution of women meets the bar of a crime against humanity
Afghan women won the right to vote as early as 1919, a year before the nineteenth amendment gave women in the United States the right to vote. In the 1960s and 1970s, the women of Afghanistan exercised political agency, and a new constitution guaranteed equal rights. In the formation of the 1965 cabinet of ministers, women were included at top levels in the government: They were appointed as parliamentarians, senators, judges, and ministers. Although women’s rights in Afghanistan have a turbulent past, this history of struggle—and gains—by Afghan women for equal rights is a reminder that Taliban rule is not the norm.
In the 1990s, the Taliban systematically deprived women of their basic rights. After the group was removed from power in 2001, Afghanistan made significant but insufficient legal progress in the realization of women’s rights. Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban has brought back its oppression of women.
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International Business Times ☛ Employer Turns Down 'Excellent' Applicant Due To 5 -Year Break: Why Gap Years Shouldn't Matter
On the other hand, Bridgette Hyacinth, CEO and founder of Leadership EQ, was shocked when a highly qualified candidate she had recommended for a role was rejected due to a five-year gap in her resume.
According to Hyacinth, the feedback given to the applicant "was very disappointing," considering she had taken the break to be a stay-at-home mum to her first child.
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YLE ☛ APN Podcast: Why is Finland on strike?
All Points North looks into Finland's latest wave of political strikes and asks where unions, employers and the government go from here.
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Hamilton Nolan ☛ Sometimes You Either Strike or Accept Death
I know that I may sound flip here. Saying “strike” is very easy, while actually planning and organizing and conducting a strike is hard. Strikes impose a terrible economic burden on the workers who are forced to strike. It is completely unjust that these particular workers, many of whom are not very well paid at all, should have to carry such a burden. But that is the reality of the situation. There is no use lying about it. If someone runs up to you in the street and attacks you with a knife, you might protest: Hey, why me? I’m tired. I’m busy. I have other things to do. I have poor health. I don’t need this drama. I shouldn’t be forced to fight for my life here. All of that is true. Nevertheless, you will fight for your life, or you will be killed. That’s all. That is where public sector unions in red states find themselves, right now.
A century ago, when there were no legal protections for organized labor, workers went on strike to win their unions, because that was their only tool. There was nothing they could appeal to except their own collective labor power. The teachers strikes that swept the nation beginning in 2018 were no different. Those public sector workers were mistreated and underpaid and oppressed and ignored and finally they realized that their only choices were to either strike or accept their fate, and so they struck. Those strikes were illegal, but it didn’t matter. Strikes are stronger than laws.
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The Register UK ☛ Former SAP exec accuses company of age discrimination
The complaint says SAP executive Greg Petraetis refused to adopt an "internal framework intended to prevent corruption and comply with the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union, as ordered by Defendant SAP SE's Board of Directors."
Nedrow claims that his manager, a German citizen, and SAP's legal department "had informed him that implementation of this framework was a 'red flag' mandatory compliance issue mandated by the Board of Directors, and therefore he reasonably believed that failure could have serious and extremely costly legal consequences," the filing says.
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The Hill ☛ Union for Medieval Times employees will no longer represent them: Report
Workers at the California location of the entertainment chain went on strike in February 2023 over lack of pay and fair working conditions, but they found no success in contract negotiations. The company instead flew in “scab” replacement actors, with the strike ending after nine months in November.
Erin Zapcic, an actor at the California location, told The Huffington Post that the company showed no intention of working in good faith in union negotiations.
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The Nation ☛ Why Is the ACLU Waging Class Warfare?
Right now, for instance, major companies, including Amazon, SpaceX, and Trader Joe’s, are pursuing lawsuits that aim to dismantle the federal government’s entire regime of legal protections for workplace organizing. These suits, which argue on technical grounds that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, are a quietly radical attack on a system that has been in place since the New Deal era. Rather than the typical union-busting tactics that big companies pursue, corporate America is now rolling the dice on the destruction of the very agency that—though imperfect—has for generations been tasked with keeping labor and capital in some sort of rough legal peace, instead of relegating union battles to the streets, where they used to be waged with guns and hired thugs. These companies don’t just want to defeat their own workers’ union drives. They’re happily trying to throw a century’s worth of progress in the trash.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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Techdirt ☛ Senator Wyden Reminds White House Feckless Regulators Have Resulted In Pathetic Security On U.S. Wireless Networks
While countless lawmakers looking to get on cable TV spent much of the last few years freaking out about TikTok privacy issues, none of those same folks seem bothered by the parade of nasty vulnerabilities in the nation’s telecom networks.
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Techdirt ☛ Legislator Apparently Used Slides Of NYC Protests In His Pitch For Reauthorizing Section 702 Surveillance
As the debate over Section 702 continues, more weird stuff keeps happening. For once, there’s serious opposition to a clean renewal, and it’s coming from both sides of the legislature. Then there are things like this, which is one of the stranger incidents to accompany a surveillance fight, as reported by Dell Cameron for Wired.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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Mere Civilian ☛ There is one type of physical media that still is objectively better
I want movies to stream in lossless UHD quality. Perhaps, I am asking too much but that was the standard before streaming took over. It’s ironic that it has been only recently that the major music streaming providers provide streaming in lossless quality (exception of Spotify and Youtube Music). Perhaps, it will take another 5 to 10 years for movies to stream in lossless quality. At that point, my newly created collection may be redundant.
Even in 2024, a 4K Bluray or even a 1080p Bluray is objectively better in quality than any streaming service. The same is the case if you buy movies from Apple iTunes etc. The physical disc has been and is still the best way to consume movies at home.
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Quartz ☛ Audi is making A3 model buyers in Europe subscribe for basic car features
With the future looking to be served by all-electric vehicles that have fewer moving parts that don’t have to be serviced as often, automakers have been looking for other sources of revenue. One such avenue leads straight to hell: subscription-based features. Automakers will build vehicles with features, lock those features behind software, and then force you to pay for it. Audi, which has already been testing subscription-based feature waters, is now diving right in with its refreshed A3 for European buyers.
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Techdirt ☛ Roku Will Brick Your Streaming Devices If You Don’t Agree To Binding Arbitration
Ever since AT&T’s 2011 Supreme Court victory, the courts have declared it perfectly legal for a corporation to erode your legal rights using fine print. As a result, most every service and company in the U.S. now uses contract fine print to try and prevent you from suing the company (either alone or in a class action), instead forcing you toward binding arbitration, a process that usually favors the company.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Tech Titans Are the Robber Barons of Our Gilded Age
The tech bros are fighting again. Last week, Apple blocked Epic Games from accessing its developer platform in Europe. The move would have prevented the Fortnite maker from building an app store to rival Apple’s just days before the European Union’s new competition measures — the Digital Markets Act — designed to prevent just such a thing, come into effect. Then, in an about-face as the EU began an investigation, Apple reversed course — a move Epic says is a response to “public backlash for retaliation.”
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The Verge ☛ Epic asks judge to enforce the Apple App Store injunction
Epic Games isn’t done with Apple. A 2021 ruling forced Apple to allow developers of App Store apps to link to outside payments, and Epic has now filed a motion asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to enforce her original order.
Epic says Apple’s updated developer policy that still reserves 27 percent of outside payments (or 12 percent for small developers) for Apple itself is still unjustified. Epic argues these fees are “essentially the same” as those the company charges for using its payments system.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Epic Games seeks contempt order against Apple
Epic Games, which makes the popular videogame Fortnite, on Wednesday accused Apple of violating an injunction governing its lucrative App Store, and asked a US judge to hold Apple in contempt and end its “sham” compliance.
The companies have been battling in court since 2020, when Epic accused Apple of violating antitrust law by requiring consumers to obtain apps through its App Store, where it charges app developers up to 30% commissions on in-app purchases.
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Trademarks
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TTAB Blog ☛ Stock Ticker Symbol HIG Confusable with H.I.G. for Financial Services, Says TTAB
The Board affirmed a refusal to register the mark HIG for, inter alia, "financial services," finding confusion likely with the registered mark H.I.G., in standard character and design form (below) for "investment services in the nature of venture capital and private equity financing, and investment banking services." The Board found these services to be legally identical. Focusing on the cited standard character mark, it found the marks to be confusingly similar. Is that the end of the story? In re Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Serial No. 90263124 (March 11, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Mark Lebow).
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TTAB Blog ☛ Despite Applicant's Bad Intent, TTAB Dismisses Oppositions to EVSFOOD for Beverages
The Board tossed out these three-pronged oppositions to registration of the mark EVSFOOD for beverages and beverage components, dismissing Opposer's claims of lack of bona fide intent, false suggestion of a connection under Section 2(a), and likelihood of confusion under Section 2(d). Opposer's proofs came up way short on all three claims. Nu Science Corporation v. Yuyao Deutrel Chemical Science and Technology Co., Ltd., d/b/a Evsfood Group, Oppositions Nos. 91225314 and 91225328 (March 11, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Thomas L. Casagrande).
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Copyrights
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Techdirt ☛ ExTwitter Mostly Wins Silly Music Copyright Lawsuit
Last year, we wrote about a very silly lawsuit that some big music publishers had filed against ExTwitter, making some silly claims about how copyright law works. It basically ignored the existence of the DMCA, which was designed to prevent lawsuits like this one, where there is some infringement happening on the platform, but no realistic way for a website to police it, because it can’t know what is and is not infringing. That’s why the DMCA created a whole notice and takedown setup. This lawsuit seemed to basically ignore all that.
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Public Knowledge ☛ Broadband Providers Are Not Copyright Cops: Why the Sony v. Cox Case Threatens Internet Users
The long-running legal battle between a group of major record labels and internet service provider Cox Communications continues. But it’s the rights of internet users that are at stake.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Cox Requests Rehearing of Piracy Case That 'Threatens to Throw Countless People Offline'
Cox Communications has requested a rehearing en banc of the piracy liability lawsuit filed by several major record labels. While the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the $1 billion damages award, it kept the contributory copyright infringement ruling intact. This precedent results in a "draconian regime" that threatens the Internet connectivity of millions of people, Cox warns.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Nintendo Hits Circumvention Tool Linkers With DMCA Trafficking Violations
In the wake of its one-week lawsuit targeting the Yuzu Switch emulator, Nintendo is back to clean up the house. The company has just shut down around 30 GitHub repos offering circumvention tools with attempts to evade liability given short shrift. One Nintendo takedown notice makes it clear that, even when people link to a third-party site that hosts tools available via different links, it still amounts to trafficking in circumvention devices under the DMCA.
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Digital Music News ☛ Underestimate the Indie Music Publisher at Your Own Peril, TikTok
If Fentanylware (TikTok) somehow avoids getting banned, sold, or otherwise knee-capped in the United States, another dark storm cloud awaits. Enter indie music publishers, who could render this platform awfully quiet in the coming months. Their collective impact is bigger than many realize.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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