Musk’s Pledge To Bring Starlink To Iran Didn’t Actually Do Anything. That Didn’t Stop The Hype Machine.

Overhype

from the sound-and-fury,-signifying-nothing dept

Despite Elon Musk’s disdain for the press, his legend wouldn’t exist without the media’s need to hyperventilate over every last thing that comes out of the billionaire’s mouth. We’re at the point where the dumbest offhand comment by Musk becomes its own three week news cycle (see the entire news cycle based on Musk’s comments on a baseless story about somebody cheating at chess with anal beads).

Of course it’s even worse if Musk says something that actually sounds important. Like when Musk recently proclaimed he’d be offering Starlink satellite broadband service in Iran in a heroic bid to help protesting Iranians avoid government surveillance and censorship. It was literally a two word tweet, but the claim, as usual, resulted in lots of ass kissing and a week long news cycle about how Musk was heroically helping Iranians.

But the announcement was hollow. Not that you’d know this by perusing press stories. Only a few outlets, like Al Jazeera and The Intercept, could be bothered to dig behind the claims to discover the announcement didn’t actually accomplish much of anything real.

Iran quickly banned the Starlink website, and the only way actual Iranians would be able to use the service is if somebody smuggled Starlink dishes (aka “terminals”) into the country in the middle of a massive wave of violent unrest, something that’s likely impossible at any real scale. There’s also the issue of no ground stations tying connectivity together in Iran:

Musk’s plan is further complicated by Starlink’s reliance on ground stations: communications facilities that allow the SpaceX satellites to plug into earthbound internet infrastructure from orbit. While upgraded Starlink satellites may no longer need these ground stations in the near future, the network of today still largely requires them to service a country as vast as Iran, said Humphreys, the University of Texas professor. Again, Iran is unlikely to approve the construction within its borders of satellite installations owned by an American defense contractor.

So even if Musk wanted to offer struggling Iranians broadband access they’re extremely unlikely to be able to get dishes. And even if they could get dishes, they probably couldn’t use them because the necessary infrastructure wasn’t in place. Of course Musk knew this. But Musk also knows that any random bullshit that comes out of his mouth creates several weeks of free press because the ad-based U.S. press has steadily devolved into a billionaire-coddling bullshit clickbait and controversy machine.

The Intercept found it didn’t take much for large swaths of the Internet to believe that the billionaire had dramatically changed things in Iran with a tweet. Musk fandom is often a fan fiction based community, where truth is fairly negotiable:

Implausibility hasn’t stopped Musk’s fans, either. One tweet from a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council purporting to document a Starlink dish already successfully secreted into Iran turned out to be a photo from 2020, belonging to an Idaho man who happened to have a Persian rug.

That’s not to say that Starlink can’t help people in countries where emergency connectivity is needed, such as in Ukraine. Or rural Kentucky (assuming they can afford the $710 first month bill). But it is to say that turning your brain off every single time Elon Musk opens his mouth because you’ve convinced yourself he’s some kind of deity is violently annoying to people still living in reality.

And while Musk loves to whine and cry about the unfairness of the press, his legend literally wouldn’t exist without the endless supply of clickbait-seeking editors who are completely uninterested in the actual truth behind any and every claim the man makes, whether it’s the capabilities of “full self driving” or Starlink’s potential.

Filed Under: censorship, elon musk, high speed internet, hype, iran, satellite, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

Is California’s Kids Code Screwing Up The Efforts For A Federal Privacy Law?

Privacy

from the thinking-stuff-through-might-be-nice dept

It really does feel like the legislative process regarding the tech world and privacy is a complete mess. While politicians are right that it would be good if we got a comprehensive privacy bill in place, they seem to have no idea what that even means. Actually, it seems like they don’t even know what privacy means. And thus, the mess just continues. California tried to leap ahead into the unknown by putting together a truly ridiculous bill (CCPA) that no one has even figured out yet, despite it having passed years ago. And, without even bothering to understand any of it, California has pushed ahead again with the California’s Age Appropriate Design Code law, which somehow intersects with the CCPA, but again, no one’s quite sure how or why.

And now, people are pointing out that the kid’s code is actually messing up plans for a federal privacy law. Even before the law was signed by Governor Newsom, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she was putting the brakes on the only federal privacy law with any traction (not that it was good…) because it might upset Californian politicians. The concern: federal law might pre-empt California’s laws:

“However, Governor Newsom, the California Privacy Protection Agency and top state leaders have pointed out the American Data Privacy and Protection Act does not guarantee the same essential consumer protections as California’s existing privacy laws.  Proudly, California leads the nation not only in innovation, but also in consumer protection.  With so much innovation happening in our state, it is imperative that California continues offering and enforcing the nation’s strongest privacy rights.  California’s landmark privacy laws and the new kids age-appropriate design bill, both of which received unanimous and bipartisan support in both chambers, must continue to protect Californians — and states must be allowed to address rapid changes in technology.“

The concern is that the federal law would basically wipe out state laws. I know that some people are concerned about this, but a federal law really needs to do exactly that. First off, whatever you think of California’s attempts at privacy laws, there are all those other states out there as well. And we’re already seeing how states like Florida and Texas have been passing dangerous content moderation bills that are more designed to spite internet companies than actually protect users.

How soon do you think they’re going to do the same with privacy laws as well?

Second, it’s basically impossible for smaller companies to comply with even California’s weird law. How are we going to comply with 50 separate state laws, each with their own variations and quirks and problems (and, likely, contradictions). A federal law that pre-empts state laws sets a single standard across the country. As bad as the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act may turn out to be, at the very least, they’re trying to harmonize the laws across the EU.

The US, which should be more harmonized than the EU in general, seems to be going in the other direction.

Yes, sure, California feels the need to do stuff because no one in DC can get their act together to pass a reasonable federal privacy law. But that doesn’t mean that we should just let any state do whatever it wants (or what UK aristocrats want).

The fact that this awful California law is now being used as an excuse to hold up any effort on a federal privacy law seems like a really, really silly excuse. And, to be clear, it almost certainly is an excuse, because Pelosi and others in Congress know that they’re currently unable to pass any actually serious privacy law, so claiming that it will somehow “block” terrible California laws is seen as a way to hide their own failings.

But, at the very least, it seems to suggest that maybe California should stop rushing through so many half-baked laws.

Filed Under: ab 2273, age appropriate design code, california, federal privacy law, nancy pelosi, privacy

Daily Deal: HP ProBook X360 11-G1-EE (Refurbished)

Deals

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The HP ProBook X360 11-G1-EE (refurbished) is a Windows 10 Professional laptop with an 11.6″ display and a resolution of 1366×768 pixels, providing the ultimate user experience. This laptop is powered by an Intel Pentium dual-core processor that optimizes your work for better productivity. It also comes with 8GB RAM for faster and smoother performance. The HP ProBook X360 is packed with 128GB HDD storage that provides enough space to store important files. Its graphics are powered by Intel HD graphics. The connectivity options of this laptop include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth, Ethernet, with 3 USB ports, RJ45 (LAN) ports. It’s on sale for $230.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Roskomnadzor Has Become Putin’s Personal Powerful Surveillance Network

Privacy

from the regulatory-thugs dept

Russia’s Roskomnadzor never used to be a powerful government thug. It used to be almost nothing at all. It was an afterthought — a regulatory agency created to cover things hardly anyone considered to be important. It was formed in 2008 and asked to oversee radio signals, telecom, and the Russian mail service.

But then it was told to oversee the internet. And its power has grown as Vladimir Putin’s power has grown, morphing from a forgotten bureaucracy composed of a few dozen employees to a behemoth capable of shutting down the internet and controlling Russian internet communications.

The New York Times has obtained 160,000 pages of leaked documents detailing Roskomnadzor’s activities from transparency activist group, DDoSecrets. They show just how powerful the regulatory agency has become, both in terms of internet oversight and as a weapon to be deployed in Putin’s never ending propaganda campaigns.

The agency’s role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as “pro-government,” “anti-government” or “apolitical.”

Roskomnadzor has also worked to unmask and surveil people behind anti-government accounts and provided detailed information on critics’ online activities to security agencies, according to the documents. That has supplemented real-world actions, with those surveilled coming under attack for speaking out online. Some have then been arrested by the police and held for months. Others have fled Russia for fear of prosecution.

Roskomnadzor is Putin’s personal army. While his actual army is deployed in an effort to turn Ukraine into just another Eastern Bloc country, his telecom regulator is fighting the war at home, shutting down dissent and ensuring promotion of the party line.

One way the agency achieves its aim is the installation of hardware. Documents show Roskomnadzor mandated installation of “censorship boxes” by local internet providers. These devices allowed the Russian government to become the man-in-the-middle when public sentiment turned against it, giving it the power to throttle services utilized by government critics. They also allow the government to pull the plug on services whenever it deems it necessary. Twitter access has been repeatedly throttled. The agency has also completely blocked access to Facebook and Instagram and ensured VPN services are unusable by Russian citizens.

It’s also a surveillance agency, according to the documents obtained and leaked by DDofSecrets.

Just in Bashkortostan, an oil-rich region with about 4 million residents, Roskomnadzor tracked the online activities of hundreds of people and organizations. It gathered information about government critics and identified shifting political opinions on social media. It compiled dossiers on independent media outlets and online influencers who shared information unfavorable to the government that might gain traction with the Russian public.

Roskomnadzor is an authoritarian Swiss Army knife. Whatever the government needs it to do, it can do, thanks to its insertion into every part of Russian communications. Enacted laws may theoretically restrain Roskomnadzor’s actions, but reality (and leaked documents) show it answers only to the dictates of Putin and his supporters, no matter what the law actually says. There is no oversight to answer to other than Putin himself.

In some cases, censors recorded their screens showing detail down to the movements of their computer mouse as they watched over the internet. They monitored overtly political videos and, at other times, focused on less obviously worrisome content, like this viral song by the young rapper KEML. Bashkortostan is known as a hub for rap in Russia.

Roskomnadzor also helped Mr. Putin centralize power far from Moscow. The regional office in Bashkortostan only shared a fraction of its work with the local government, according to one document. Many reports were instead sent straight to the F.S.B. and other central agencies.

It’s an internet regulator that acts like a spy agency and communicates directly with an actual spy agency. Russian citizens are the targets. The Russian state has steadily moved towards the Big Brother ideal of the former Soviet Union, which turned neighbor against neighbor with the assistance of the KGB. The new, supposedly freer Russian state is now indistinguishable from the one that erected the Berlin Wall, thanks to Putin and Roskomnadzor. All it’s missing is the land mass. Cue the invasion of Ukraine.

In the first weeks of the war on Ukraine, Roskomnadzor censors ramped up, according to the documents. They focused not just on the war but its side effects, including the public response to a domestic crackdown on dissent and grumblings about the invasion’s effect on the rising cost of goods.

On Feb. 27, agency officials monitored the reaction to reports that a family from Ufa — including young children — was detained for protesting the war. Another report flagged an item that was spreading quickly online that described how the F.S.B. brutally beat and electrocuted a protester.

“Some users negatively assessed the actions of law enforcement agencies,” they wrote, noting 200,000 users had viewed the news on the messaging app Telegram.

Everything that’s of interest to the government becomes part of a dossier. Public sentiment is gauged. Targets for surveillance and/or prosecution are determined. Government officials are advised. Operatives are put to work countering negative perception. Anything not viewed as useful or innocuous is censored. All of this is done by an agency that was created to keep an eye on snail mail.

What’s detailed in the New York Times report is astounding. Even more astounding is the fact that this leak only covers the actions of one regional Roskomnadzor office. This is happening all over the country, and is likely performed with even more alacrity and intensity by offices located in the country’s capital.

The Russian government has re-perfected narrative control and countrywide censorship under Putin. And it has a massive, well-oiled apparatus to ensure the government achieves its ends. This leak exposes the inner workings of this machinery. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to embarrass the Putin regime from dialing back the censorial thuggery. Some governments simply have no shame.

Filed Under: roskomnadzor, rozkomnadzor, russia, surveillance, ukraine, vladimir putin

The Great TikTok Moral Panic Continues As White House Fends Off Calls For A Ban. For Now.

Overhype

from the teen-dancing-is-the-greatest-threat-the-nation-has-ever-faced dept

We’ve noted repeatedly how the massive freak out over TikTok is kind of dumb and myopic, with folks singularly fixated on TikTok, but not the lax global adtech, data broker ecosystem we built that helped create it in the first place.

We’ve also noted that most of the U.S. policy solutions for the supposed threat posed by TikTok (that it will be used by the Chinese government to spy on and brainwash your children) have been equally stupid. Like that time Trump pretended to care about privacy then tried to offload the entire company to his buddies at Walmart and Oracle for the safety of America’s toddlers or what have you.

Enter the Biden administration, which is purportedly working on a deal with TikTok and ByteDance that would let the company keep operating in the United States, but would implement some guard rails in terms of the company’s data security and governance. But it sounds like the deal isn’t going that well:

The two sides are still wrangling over the potential agreement. The Justice Department is leading the negotiations with TikTok, and its No. 2 official, Lisa Monaco, has concerns that the terms are not tough enough on China, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The Treasury Department, which plays a key role in approving deals involving national security risks, is also skeptical that the potential agreement with TikTok can sufficiently resolve national security issues, two people with knowledge of the matter said. That could force changes to the terms and drag out a final resolution for months.

The White House appears to be avoiding a TikTok ban for now. But they do seem to be continuing a key “solution” for TikTok begun in the Trump administration. And that is, basically tethering much of the app to Oracle, a U.S. company with a long history of privacy violations, cozying up to China, super dodgy legal and lobbying practices, and a CEO who may or may not believe in this whole democracy thing:

First, TikTok would store its American data solely on servers in the United States, probably run by Oracle, instead of on its own servers in Singapore and Virginia, two of the people said. Second, Oracle is expected to monitor TikTok’s powerful algorithms that determine the content that the app recommends, in response to concerns that the Chinese government could use its feed as a way to influence the American public, they said.

Tethering TikTok to a dodgy company like Oracle isn’t actually much of a solution, but it allows folks to feel like they’re doing something. Still, actual policy solutions to TikTok are likely going to prove hard to come by. In large part because the TikTok policy conversation is predominately being driven by bad faith operators who don’t actually care about the real underlying issue: consumer privacy.

Trump never actually cared about kids being spied on, he just saw an opportunity for some cronyism and xenophobic saber rattling. Politico’s new Billionaire owner Mathias Döpfner doesn’t actually care about consumer privacy, he cares about hamstringing a mindshare competitor.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an avid leader in the “ban TikTok” movement, has never shown the slightest interest in consumer privacy at his day job at the FCC, but has found the subject a great way to gain political brownie points among the China-phobic. Then there’s Facebook, whicho has already been caught several times spreading moral panic stories about TikTok in the press.

There’s no shortage of Silicon Valley executives who can’t engineer a better alternative and simply don’t want to compete with a popular Chinese app. Then there’s no shortage of DC politicians who are simply racist, but like to hide that racism under the veneer of national security.

That’s all to say that while there are very valid concerns about TikTok and the data it collects, most of the folks most vocally heading to the fainting couch don’t actually care about the supposed underlying issue: consumer privacy. Countless folks just hear the word “China” and their brain simple goes into a bizarre autopilot mode. That’s not a great place to start from when crafting policy.

Again, we created a massive adtech and data broker ecosystem in which consumer privacy has long taken a backseat to making money. So even if you ban TikTok tomorrow, China (or any other government or company) can still access much of the same U.S. consumer location, browsing, facial recognition, and behavior data from an absolute ocean of dodgy middlemen who see very little in the way of meaningful accountability. Many of the same folks complaining about TikTok proudly built that environment.

In that sense, the fixation on TikTok is a giant distraction from our real failure: consumer privacy and consumer protection. But guys like Mark Zuckerberg or Mathias Döpfner don’t want to actually have that conversation, as the end result might be new US privacy rules and laws that would trim a few zeroes off of their total net worth.

Guys like Brendan Carr don’t really want to have that conversation either, as it would advertise that the policies they support (like say stripping away broadband privacy rules at the FCC, or fighting every effort at a national privacy law if it upsets AT&T) routinely created the environment that allowed companies to abuse consumer trust and privacy with relative impunity for decades.

With bad faith actors leading the charge I’m not sure any of this ends well.

It’s pretty clear most of the loudest TikTok critics are perfectly ok with abusing platforms to spread propaganda, or over-collecting, abusing, and failing to secure consumer data, but only if we’re the ones doing it. But you can’t separate the two things; creating a zero accountability privacy-hoovering data broker hellscape created the problems with TikTok.

Just banning a single app doesn’t fix the actual problem. But we don’t want to fix the actual problem (our lax consumer protection and privacy standards) because some wealthy men in the U.S. might lose money. So instead we’re getting a series of face-fanning performances that will, ultimately, probably accomplish nothing.

Filed Under: china, consumer protection, privacy, social media, surveillance, video, white house
Companies: oracle, tiktok

Belly Buttons And Napolean Poses: Google Play Flags Android Game For Inappropriate Content

Content Moderation

from the inverted-nipple! dept

We’ve talked a great deal about the impossibility of getting AI or other automated systems to properly police content for moderation purposes. While all kinds of content fits into this generally, we can pick on the topic of nudity or sexual content to demonstrate the point. We have a slew of posts on the topic, almost all of which deal with a service provider, through automated systems or even IRL people, not being able to discern when content is inappropriate or not. For instance, Facebook has a ban on showing a picture of a penis. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, what about Neptune’s penis? You know, on a statue in Bologna? Now it seems kinda silly, right?

It’s not just Facebook and it’s not just automated systems. Take Hook Up: The Game, for instance. That is the name of a mobile game on iOS and Android that consists of a visual novel about a woman in her 20s that encounters a bully from her school days on a dating app. The game has some sexual themes, though it is apparently more about dealing with trauma and navigating the modern dating world more than anything else. No sex acts are depicted. It’s meant to be artistic. And Google has flagged it for inappropriate content.

Google Play does warn developers that content designed to be “sexually gratifying” is not allowed on the platform, but it can be tricky to know how exactly that’s being enforced. Take 7 Sexy Sins, for example, a game which has the player removing the armor from anime demon girls, only to “snap some pictures… for personal uses”. It’s got an age rating of 12+ and has been downloaded more than 10,000 times without being pulled from the platform. By contrast, Hook Up: The Game is a narrative game about dating, relationships and learning to deal with past trauma.

The developer, Artemigi, was very confused by the flag and appealed the decision. Google responded stating that the app “promoted sexual content” and also apparently indicated that the novel was about a sex worker. And then, helpfully in a way, it provided an image for the content that it deemed inappropriate.

Yes, the image on the right has boxes around the supposed naughty bits. Apparently pixelated bumps over a shirt constitute nudity, somehow. In addition, you may have noticed that there is a box around the woman’s navel. Now, perhaps I’ve been transported into an alternate universe where Google is run by a council of Puritans, but somehow I doubt it. Granted, some might want to argue that a belly button is really nothing but an inverted nipple, but you should probably run away from those people because they’re crazy-pants.

Oh, and the suggestive pose? That mirrors a statue of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline, on display in Rome.

“That pose was specifically based on classical statues because there’s a reference to Alex feeling like her bully was this Greek god,” said Artemigi. “It’s meant to be about objectifying yourself and finding beauty in one’s self.”

And so Artemigi continued the back and forth, before eventually asking that the appeal be escalated to someone that actually had a couple of braincells to rub together. Unfortunately, the response she received was… interesting.

The final response from her official Google contact once again pointed out that Hook Up was in violation of the platform’s policy, but this time ended with the following sentence:

“Regarding your concern about escalation, I am the highest form of escalation. Next to me is God. Do you wanna see God?”

In Google’s defense, the company has indicated that the person behind that particular message has been pulled off the support team.

And so the end result is that, while the game is still available for purchase on the Google Play Store, it remains flagged for inappropriate content. Because nipple-bumps and belly buttons. As a result, it is very difficult to find the game via the search function in the Play Store and Artemigi can’t push out updates to the game. The iOS version on the App Store, it should be noted, suffers from none of these issues.

Human or AI, content moderation is impossible. If we can’t even discern between a belly button and a nipple, we’re lost.

Filed Under: content moderation, google play, hook up: the game, sex
Companies: artemigi, google

Rep. Ken Buck’s Irrational Spite Of Tech Companies May Have Screwed Up Another Antitrust Bill

Politics

from the spite-is-no-way-to-legislate dept

It’s kinda weird how the GOP’s pure hatred and spite towards tech companies, and their desire to exact maximum punishment rather than make good policy, keeps blowing up bills that might otherwise pass. We’ve talked plenty about how Republicans have effectively torpedoed the big tech antitrust bill by insisting that it must include provisions that will be used to sue tech companies over antitrust for… suppressing disinformation. And then there was Ted Cruz (at least temporarily) blowing up a (terrible) journalism antitrust bill by bringing content moderation into it.

And now it appears that Rep. Ken Buck may have destroyed an otherwise perfectly sensible antitrust bill. Back when it was introduced in a package of a bunch of (mostly bad) antitrust bills, we noted that Rep. Joe Neguse’s Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act seemed perfectly fine. It would adjust the fees companies pay when larger mergers happen, greatly increasing the really, really big merger fees (and actually slightly decreasing fees paid for mergers under $500 million). It’s expected that this would provide a lot more funds to the FTC and DOJ to do more antitrust work, and that seems reasonable as well.

The bill had gained some momentum of late, with the White House stumping for it. But… yesterday a bunch of Democrats noticed that Rep. Ken Buck snuck in a “modified version” of the bill, tacking on one of his own spiteful antitrust bills that wasn’t really moving. It’s the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act, which at the last minute was bundled with the fee modernization plan.

As it stands now, when big antitrust lawsuits are filed, the courts are able to consolidate them and make sure they’re dealt with in the court that is most convenient for all parties in the litigation. This makes sense for a bunch of reasons. However, under Buck’s SAEVA, that will be prevented, and politically-minded Attorneys General (i.e. grandstanding politicians who want their names in headlines) can effectively jurisdiction-shop their antitrust lawsuits and multiple such lawsuits can happen all over the country, without the ability for them to be consolidated. The Administrative Office of the Courts actually wrote a letter protesting the bill, noting that the whole thing would create a huge mess for the courts:

Excepting State antitrust actions from centralization can only increase the number of actions (and, hence, the number of independent parties and courts) outside the ambit of the MDL. Related actions that cannot be centralized can introduce case management difficulties into the MDL. Parties and courts in actions pending outside the MDL may (either actively or inadvertently) undermine attempts to coordinate and streamline discovery and pretrial practice in the litigation. For instance, such actions may be subject to different pretrial schedules, parties and witnesses might by subject to duplicative discovery, and the courts might issue inconsistent pretrial rulings pertaining to the same parties. It also is possible that substantively inconsistent rulings could issue — such as with respect to market definition or which standard of review (per se or rule of reason) applies to a given case. Given the nationwide scope of these antitrust litigations, such inconsistent rulings may complicate proceedings and sow confusion not only among the courts and parties, but also in the marketplace.

So, now, because Buck was able to piggyback his own bad bill, which he sees as a tool to punish big tech by having every AG sue them in their home state, leading to the companies dealing with tons of competing antitrust claims, many who previously supported the Neguse bill are urging their colleagues to back off their support.

Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Eric Swalwell, Lou Correa, Scott Peters, and Jimmy Paneta sent around a letter to their colleagues calling this nonsense out, and urging them to vote no on this bill (which, again, was basically fine without Buck’s nonsense):

The Title III provisions would undermine a component of our judicial system that has functioned fairly, justly, and efficiently for more than 50 years. Under current law, antitrust cases that are pending in different federal courts, and that involve common questions of fact, may be transferred to a single court district for coordinated or consolidated trial proceedings. Congress deliberately crafted this system (in the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in 1976) whereby senior federal judges – not some of our nation’s politically-motivated State Attorneys General – determine which cases should be most efficiently and justly resolved through centralized litigation. Title III would exempt antitrust cases brought by State Attorneys General in federal court from this deliberative system.

Title III would allow multiple states to simultaneously pursue their own separate actions against the same antitrust defendants in numerous different federal courts. Businesses, inevitably, would find themselves facing multiple lawsuits, in courtrooms across the country, burdening an already-overloaded court system. Additionally, unlike cases brought by private plaintiffs, the businesses would have no way to consolidate the cases into a single fair proceeding. That significantly increases the risk of conflicting judgements, and those judicial conflicts are exactly what Congress sought to avoid when it originally passed Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in 1976.

It’s kind of amazing. Basically, the GOP is just so obsessed about punishing big tech that it’s destroying any chance to craft useful policy.

Filed Under: antitrust, joe neguse, ken buck, merger filing fee modernization act, state antitrust enforcement venue act, zoe lofgren

Indian Legislators Want The Government To Be Able To Intercept Encrypted Messages

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the residents-asked-to-pay-for-man-in-the-middle-attacks-against-them dept

India is still a democracy. Or so it pretends. But it’s becoming indistinguishable from autocratic regimes, like those found in some of its nearby neighbors, China, Turkey, and Pakistan.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has become indistinguishable from dozens of other abusive regimes run by dictators, all while trying to uphold the pretense of democracy. Since Modi’s election in 2014, the government has endlessly sought ways to stifle dissent and monitor all local internet activity. The Indian government has taken legislative swipes against VPN providers, made third party platforms directly responsible for user-generated content, and leveraged fear-inducing (but poorly defined) terms like “terrorism” and “fake news” to propose and pass laws that expand already generous government snooping powers.

Despite its best efforts, the Indian government has been unable to outlaw device and communication encryption. But that hasn’t stopped it from trying. If the government can’t mandate backdoors, perhaps it can force providers of encrypted communication services to allow the government to BCC itself on communications it can’t force out the hands of those providing end-to-end encryption.

The government has proposed a law to bring under a legal framework the interception of over-the-top communication services (OTT), such as WhatsApp and Signal which are encrypted, according to the new draft telecommunications bill uploaded late on Wednesday.

Presumably, this will be justified with assertions about national security and fighting rampant crime and corruption. The ends are a subversion of encrypted communications under the assumption that those who utilize encryption are criminals or subversives who must be spied on to secure the nation and, perhaps most importantly, secure Modi’s position.

The government will decided who’s affected by this, no matter what the final language of the bill says. It is seeking public feedback on the bill, but history indicates the government won’t be dissuaded by commenters who think the government should not give itself this much power.

The legislation would not only target text messages, but also allow the government to piggyback on encrypted voice and video calls. This gives it an opportunity to listen in on communications made by people who’d rather not create a digital paper trail of text messages.

All the government would need to do is utter the magic words (“terrorism,” “fake news,” “public safety,” “misinformation,” “crime,” etc.) and encrypted services would be forced to become open books. Here’s the relevant language:

Under section 24 of the draft, the central and state government, or any officer specially authorised in this behalf by the central or a state government can “on the occurrence of any public emergency or in the interest of the public safety” — if it is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so, in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or preventing incitement to an offence, for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order — direct that any message or class of messages, to or from any person or class of persons received by any telecommunication services… shall not be transmitted, or shall be intercepted or detained or disclosed to the officer mentioned in such order.

Governments — not the governed — have the power to decided what is “in the interest of public safety.” These two parties rarely see eye-to-eye. But only one of the parties has the power to decrypt communications. The Modi government — and legislators who prefer fealty to serving the public — are hoping this is what the future holds: a country where encryption no longer matters because the government has the power to insert itself into conversations between citizens. Vague language will permit the intrusion. The occasional recovery of something incriminating will be endlessly touted as justification for the law’s existence. And if this means providers of encrypted communications are no longer willing to offer their services in India, it will give the government what it wants, without all the hassle of prosecuting entities that refuse to subject their users to government eavesdropping.

Filed Under: backdoors, encrypted messaging, encryption, india

Kentucky Court Tells Anonymous Covington Students They Can’t Sue For Defamation If They’re Anonymous

Defamation

from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

You all remember the media shit-storm around kids from Covington Catholic High School and a run-in with folks in Washington DC that became a sort of Rorshach test demonstrating your political viewpoints based on how you viewed the encounter. The main character from Covington Catholic was Nick Sandmann, who sued a bunch of media orgs over their characterization of the events. While a few publications settled — for what it seems was clearly a tiny “nuisance fee” — Sandmann lost all of his other cases against the media, because there was no defamation at all.

In the midst of all this, we had noted that lawyer Robert Barnes, a lawyer who has only appeared in our pages for his habit of filing laughably bad lawsuits that seem more about publicity than anything else, had announced publicly that he would sue the media pro bono on behalf of Covington Catholic students. And then something kinda weird happened. He did file a defamation lawsuit against various media personalities, but all of the plaintiffs were listed as “John Does.” Among those included in the lawsuit was Reza Aslan, for his comment that Nick Sandmann had “a punchable face.”

This resulted in the somewhat crazy situation in which lots of people on Twitter assumed that when Aslan and others were sued over this, that the plaintiff was Sandmann himself. Sandmann was… not happy about it:

And, I mean, as Sandmann correctly points out, even if Barnes claimed he was suing on behalf of other Covington Catholic kids, the only kid Aslan actually spoke about was Sandmann (and saying someone has a punchable face, while immature, is not defamation).

But, also, can you sue for defamation while remaining anonymous? After all, isn’t the point of a defamation lawsuit that the commentary is harmful to your reputation? If you’re anonymous, how do you show that there was any actual harm? Or even that the commentary was about you?

Kentucky courts dismissed the lawsuit, and Barnes (being Barnes) appealed to the Kentucky Appeals Court, which has easily dismissed the nonsense lawsuit yet again. Almost all the defendants had the case dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, seeing as none of them were in Kentucky. However, one defendant, Adam Edelen, a Kentucky politician, couldn’t argue lack of personal jurisdiction, because he’s actually in Kentucky.

Of course, it still doesn’t matter and the case against him got tossed as well, because you can’t really sue for defamation and remain anonymous. That’s not how any of this works.

We will only review the claims against Edelen as he is the only defendant that was not dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. First, however, we must address the elephant in the room: is it even possible to make an anonymous claim for defamation? It defies logic to think anyone could present proof of defamation anonymously. The notion is so preposterous that Does have not pointed to any case law that allows them to proceed in this manner, nor have we found any.

The court at least tries to reason out if it could even be possible to sue for defamation as a John Doe and concludes that, no, that’s not possible. Since defamation needs to be about the plaintiff, the anonymity creates a real problem:

The first requirement for a defamation claim is that the challenged statements be “about” or “concerning” the plaintiff(s). Stringer v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 151 S.W.3d 781, 793 (Ky. 2004), overruled on other grounds by Toler, 458 S.W.3d 276. “[T]he plaintiff need not be specifically identified in the defamatory matter itself so long as it was so reasonably understood by plaintiff[’]s ‘friends and acquaintances . . . familiar with the incident.’” Stringer, 151 S.W.3d at 794 (quoting E. W. Scripps Co. v. Cholmondelay, 569 S.W.2d 700, 702 (Ky. App. 1978)).

Even so, “where defamatory statements are made against an aggregate body of persons, an individual member not specially imputed or designated cannot maintain an action.” See, e.g., Louisville Times v. Stivers, 252 Ky. 843, 847, 68 S.W.2d 411, 412 (1934) (citation omitted). For an individual plaintiff to bring a defamation action based on such comments, “the statement must be applicable to every member of the class, and if the words used contain no reflection upon any particular individual, no averment can make them defamatory.” Kentucky Fried Chicken of Bowling Green, Inc. v. Sanders, 563 S.W.2d 8, 9 (Ky. 1978). In either event, it is impossible for Does to satisfy their burden of proof on this element without revealing their identities.

Of course, even if they chose to name themselves, there’s still no actual defamation.

The tweet Edelen made that got him sued read:

“This is outrageous and abhorrent behavior. I hope part of any punishment is to ensure they read a history book on how America’s indigenous people have been treated. The parents and school that produced these boys need to do some serious soul-searching.”

It also linked to a story quoting Nathan Phillips (the guy with whom Sandmann ended up in a staring contest) talking about his side of the story.

The court notes that there’s nothing in that tweet that appears defamatory.

Kentucky has adopted the view of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 566, which states: “A defamatory communication may consist of a statement in the form of an opinion, but a statement of this nature is actionable only if it implies the allegation of undisclosed defamatory facts as the basis for the opinion.” See Lassiter v. Lassiter, 456 F. Supp. 2d 876, 881 (E.D. Ky. 2006), aff’d, 280 F. App’x 503 (6th Cir. 2008). “Pure opinion . . . occurs where the commentator states the facts on which the opinion is based[.]” Id. Herein, Edelen disclosed the facts on which his opinion was based by including a link to the article in his tweet. Thus, the trial court did not err in finding that Edelen’s tweet consisted of pure opinion and was not defamatory as a matter of law.

The court also notes in a footnote that the complaint falsely stated that the tweet and the article Edelen linked to made false statements that it did not, in fact, make.

Contrary to the allegations in Does’ amended complaint, neither Edelen’s tweet nor the article it linked contained “false statements” that “the kids interrupted an indigenous march, stopped and blocked a Native American elder and Vietnam War veteran from continuous participation in that event, surrounded him in a threatening manner, and taunted him, as a [N]ative American elder, with chants of ‘build the wall’ to mock an elderly [N]ative American in the middle of an indigenous march.”

And thus, one hopes this nonsense saga is over. It’s not even clear who Barnes’ clients are, and Sandmann has already made it quite clear that he is not a plaintiff here. The court has made it clear that you can’t really sue for defamation anonymously, most of the defendants are not subject to the court’s jurisdiction, and the only one who was… did not say anything defamatory.

So, once again, Robert Barnes is in these pages for filing a performative, nonsense lawsuit that is so laughably weak that it gets thrown out quickly.

Filed Under: anonymity, covington catholic high school, defamation, robert barnes

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from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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