Bonum Certa Men Certa

Reporting That Embarrasses Powerful People Online is at Risk (Politicians Are at It Again)

Video download link | md5sum 326ca25a0add9eb3055664d6d0bc1cc5 Restrictions in Canada and EU Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Journalism online is under attack, especially through centralised "services" (especially social control media and proprietary search engines, which are veiled disservices or censorship mechanisms) and as usual this is disguised as combating piracy, protecting children, and protecting adults from "misinformation"

THE other day we added two important items under the "politics" category of Daily Links. One concerned Canada's "Liberal Party Policy Proposal" and the other concerned DSA's (Digital Services Act) Article 37 and Article 44, which is open for feedback until the start of June. The former explores options to “hold on-line information services accountable for the veracity of material published on their platforms and to limit publication only to material whose sources can be traced.” The latter "is to set out the necessary rules for the procedures, methodology and templates used for the audits of very large online platforms and very large online search engines as required under the Digital Services Act (Article 37)."



"...what the European Commission does typically gets implemented in north American countries and vice versa for political and cultural reasons."As noted in the video above, what the European Commission does typically gets implemented in north American countries and vice versa for political and cultural reasons. They habitually refer to this as harmonisation.

In recent decades we saw a whole bunch of laws put forth as "bills" and "proposals", resulting in less speech online or more censorship by large, centralised "services", including search and social control media. When in Canada they say "limit publication only to material whose sources can be traced" they basically mean only people that the oligarchs can punish for disclosing "embarrassing" information. That would hurt anonymous sources. As an associate put it, this is one "among the many other problems with that approach."

"In recent decades we saw a whole bunch of laws put forth as "bills" and "proposals", resulting in less speech online or more censorship by large, centralised "services", including search and social control media.""Among several reasons it is very relevant to Techrights because of the sources relied upon and need for protecting them from retaliation and other abuse."

In the video above I give the examples of Novell, Microsoft, and the EPO. Source protection is very immportant. In the case of the EU, they still seek/strive to control "very large online search engines" (such as Google) and it seems to be geared towards changing or controlling the narrative. They try to get those corporations to serve some political agenda.

If you live in the EU, you can read the documents listed here and provide feedback by June 2nd (someone has already submitted a comment in French). They may or may not listen, but it's the best we can do at the moment.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Ludicrous Mythology of Commonality as Signal of Value, Merit, Popularity
Devalue what's true, promote marketing?
[Video] Richard Stallman on the Four Essential Freedoms (Manuel Cuda News, 2025)
Added to a channel several days ago by Manuel Cuda News
[Video] Richard Stallman on Understanding the Misconception of So-called 'Artificial Intelligence'
to "know and understand"
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Lagrange 1.18.5 and Writing Mannerisms
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2025: International Women's Day, Software Patents Being Squashed
Links for the day
 
Links 10/03/2025: Small Web Praised, LLM Chatbots Exposed as Worse Than Useless Again
Links for the day
A Call for GNU/Linux and BSD Developers to Unite Against GAFAM and the Regime They Empower
We have long encouraged and continue to encourage people who value Software Freedom to altogether boycott GAFAM
Gemini Links 10/03/2025: Realisation About Young People, Punks, and Discord IPO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 09, 2025
FSF's Defective by Design (DBD): Amazon Tightens the Digital Handcuffs
Reproduced verbatim
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Plenty of Issues, Plenty of Censorship
The OSI is abusive on many levels!
EPO Staff Appraisals Apparently Benefit Kakistocracy, Including Cheaters Who Grant Illegal Patents and Punish Good Patent Examiners (Who Find Valid Reasons for Denials)
In prior reports the staff representatives said that rewards typically went to people who granted many patents, i.e. didn't do proper examination and instead just allowed many fake patents get enshrined as EPs, causing fiasco (from which some patent attorneys could profit)
As The Web Gets Drowned Out, Sinking in a Pool of LLM Slop, Real News Sites With Real News Become Increasingly Rare If Not Extinct
This is a real problem
Links 09/03/2025: Moderna Patents Thrown Out, Climate United Sues E.P.A.
Links for the day
Links 09/03/2025: FiveThirtyEight Killed by Disney, Nature (Journal) Chooses Suicide by Slop
Links for the day
Hiding Problems Doesn't Work
transparent organisations will be more stable and sustainable
The Harder They Try to Censor, the Bigger the Scandal (and the Impact) Will Be
We don't plan to self-censor our coverage; sometimes we just delay publication a little
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Leasehold Derangement Syndrome, Raspberry Pi, and More
Links for the day
All-Time Low for Microsoft in Africa
it helps show how irrelevant Microsoft is becoming
French woman (frontaliere) trafficked to promote unauthorised cross border Swiss insurance
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
New York Times & Guardian reporting on Modern Slavery Act prosecution of Glodi Wabelua
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Diana & Adrian von Bidder-Senn, EVP, Palm Sunday & Debian death on wedding day
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The RTO (Return-to-office) Layoffs or 'Soft' Layoffs at IBM and Red Hat
There are certainly many layoffs going on there, but many are described as "resignations" or "retirements" after RTO or some other form of relocation
Under the Pen Name "John O'Donnell" (LLM Slop, Not Real Article or Author) LinuxLinks Pushes Spammy Page
it happened some hours ago.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 08, 2025
Graveyard of Mastodons: A Vast Number of Inactive Accounts
More than 80% of users in mastodon.social (the "big one") are no longer active
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Reading Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother', Abandoning GAFAM Forever
Links for the day
No, We Don't Want to Go "Viral" (and You Probably Don't, Either)
"Viral" junk gets forgotten quickly
Windows is Being Eradicated
On the Web, in Africa in particular, user strings or UAs that say "Windows" are becoming more rare
For International Women's Rights Day (Today) Staff Representatives at the European Patent Office (EPO) Opened Up on Gender Discrimination at the Office
Office discrimination against women is widely known; unless you sleep with men in management
Links 08/03/2025: Tariff Self Harm and Mostly Solved Diseases Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2025: Climate Change Causing Food Shortages, Selling Off Chrome Still in the Cards
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Driving in Japan, GrapheneOS, Tariffs Silver Lining
Links for the day
Working Like a Pack of Hyenas, the Microsofters Try Hard to Hide the Truth and Actively Censor Critics
They even target women
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Bylaws of the OSI a Shocking Oversight
That's what the OSI is right now: a salesperson
Thinking About Abandoning 'Google News' Altogether Due to Easy Poisoning by LLM Slop
As long as Google News keeps sending traffic to these leeches, it'll be very hard to justify relying on Google News for anything at all
Links 08/03/2025: Microsoft Failures, Further Attacks on Speech in Hong Kong
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Physical Albums, Analog Computing, Deleting All Social Control Media
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 07, 2025