It was just a few weeks ago that we were discussing how an update Apple made to its rules for its App Store allowed for some retro-console game emulator apps, but not retro-PC game emulator apps for some reason. When Apple made the policy change, developer Chaoji Li submitted his app, iDOS, for consideration, only to have it rejected. Adding to the frustration were reps for the App Store suggesting that Li “make changes” to the app and resubmit it, but could not articulate what those changes should be. Elsewhere, Apple pointed that the policy change specifically allowed for “console” emulators and not PC emulators, though why that particular distinction made it into the policy at all was never explained.
What this all creates is a platform that is changing its own policies for its own reasons, all behind an opaque wall, with those attempting to submit to the app store left in the dark. And it all comes off as an organization that is making these changes haphazardly. Including welcome changes, which just occurred with Apple revising the policy yet again such that iDOS is now allowed after all in the App Store.
Developer Chaoji Li’s announcement of iDOS 3’s availability didn’t have a tone of triumph to it, though—more like exhaustion, given the app’s struggles over the years:
“It has been a long wait for common sense to prevail within Apple. As much as I want to celebrate, I still can’t help being a little bit cautious about the future. Are we good from now on?
I hope iDOS can now enjoy its turn to stay and grow.
P.S. Even though words feel inadequate at times, I would like to say thank you to the supporters of iDOS. In many ways, you keep iDOS alive.”
And so now it’s live in the App Store. What caused Apple to change its stance on retro PC emulation? Who knows! Will Apple change its mind somewhere down the road and nix the app from its platform once again? Who knows! Can other PC emulator apps successfully be listed alongside iDOS? Definitely maybe!
But at least for now we can recognize that the policy change from Apple is a good one. There is zero reason why console emulators should be allowed but not an app like iDOS. But to foster a really healthy ecosystem for its App Store, it sure would help for Apple to be more transparent about its rules in the future.
For a while, we’ve been pointing out how terrible KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) is. Our main concern is that the bill would fundamentally lead to the suppression of all kinds of speech. That’s because the “duty of care” provision, while limited, would allow officials (mostly at the FTC, which can get partisan) to argue that certain types of results were due to a design failure, and companies would seek to suppress content, rather than face the potential liability.
For the most part, we’ve been highlighting how the law would be used by the GOP to suppress LGBTQ speech. They’ve come out and said that’s exactly what they want to use it for. We’ve been surprised that Democrats have been so eager to support it for that reason. But the unfortunate reality is that Democrats are just as censorial as Republicans, just on other issues.
A few weeks back, we were a little surprised when it came out that House Republicans didn’t have the votes to pass KOSA, meaning it wasn’t coming to the floor. I had hoped that it was for the many good reasons that Senator Rand Paul had laid out in his Dear Colleague letter regarding how problematic the law was, not for culture war reasons, but just for basic common sense reasons:
Should platforms stop children from seeing climate-related news because climate change is one of the leading sources of anxiety amongst younger generations? Should they stop children from seeing coverage of international conflicts because it could lead to depression? Should pro-life groups have their content censored because platforms worry that it could impact the mental well-being of teenage mothers? This bill opens the door to nearly limitless content regulation.
The bill contains a number of vague provisions and undefined terms. The text does not explain what it means for a platform to “prevent and mitigate” harm, nor does it define “addiction-like behaviors.” Additionally, the bill does not explicitly define the term “mental health disorder.” Instead, it references the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders or “the most current successor edition.” As such, the definition could change without any input from Congress.
We do not impose these types of burdens on any other sector of the economy. For example, the bill seeks to protect minors from alcohol and gambling ads on certain online platforms. However, minors can turn on the TV to watch the Super Bowl or the PGA tour and see the exact same ads without any problem.
However, according to a new report in The Hill (which claims that there is still work going on behind the scenes to get KOSA moving again), the real reason is that the GOP has realized that the censorial portions of the bill could be used to suppress their own culture warrioring speech:
A House leadership aide told The Hill that concerns from across the House GOP about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) — which passed the Senate 91-3 last month as part of a package that also included provisions such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Action Act (COPPA 2.0) — suggest it “cannot be brought in its current form.”
“It could lead to censorship of conservative speech, such as pro-life views, is almost certainly unconstitutional and grants sweeping new authority to unelected bureaucrats at the FTC,” the leadership aide said, referring to the Federal Trade Commission.
You could argue that the GOP was supportive of the bill when it thought it had the upper hand to be the next administration. But now, looking at the polls and the increasing likelihood that Harris will win, they’ve suddenly realized that maybe they don’t want a Lina Khan-run FTC determining what kinds of harm fail a duty of care…
But, really, this should be why both parties reject this approach. This approach is fundamentally built on the false idea that harms that happen to children can be magically stopped by just not letting kids see “bad” content. The law is bad no matter what kind of content it might enable to be targeted by the FTC. It shouldn’t move forward because of that simple fact.
I, for one, would welcome an opportunity for the inmates to run the asylum. It can’t possibly be any stupider than this bit of news, which emanates from what I consider to be my hometown (I spent 15 formative years living here, beginning at age 5), El Paso, Texas.
An El Paso middle school is banning students from wearing all-black clothing due to it being associated with mental health issues.
A letter sent to parents by Charles Middle School principal Nick DeSantis stated that the clothing is “associated with depression and mental health issues.”
Do tell, Mr. DeSantis, who I (hopefully!) assume is not related to Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Notably, neither the school’s official statement nor its new clothing policy cite any experts in the field of mental health. The principal (and a follow-up statement from the city’s Teachers Association) just threw w this out as the sort of indisputable fact no one can argue with, right up there with “water = wet” and “Texas is big.”
According to the follow-up statement, the clothing policy forbids students at this school from wearing both black bottoms and black tops. Fortunately (I guess?), this statement doesn’t claim to be backed by actual research or mental health professionals. It simply says that this particular combination is forbidden, with the only exception being PE class, where presumably no one with mental health issues might be influenced by the black-on-black clothing scheme they wear or is worn by others.
That alone undercuts the assertion made by the principal in the opening quote. If it’s a problem in every other class, it would make sense to assume it’s equally problematic in PE.
But that doesn’t make the Teachers Assocation’s statement any less stupid. President Norma De La Rosa is apparently equally convinced dressing in black is bad for students, whether or not they have any cognizable or diagnosed mental health issues.
According to De La Rosa, the reason for the policy is that teachers see a sudden change in students going from dressing with color to all black, when they are depressed or stressed.
Would this “sudden change” be the color of the clothing? Because that’s what this statement immediately suggests. Or would it be (far more probably) that educators and administrators experience a sudden change in their personal perception of students who choose to wear black clothing because they’re the same sort of people who decided anyone in a trenchcoat was a violent killer after the Columbine school shooting?
I’m going to bet on the latter. The normies think all-black is bad because they’d never consider it to be an acceptable outfit for themselves.
But black clothing isn’t a sign of mental health issues or depression or stress. Some people may think black clothing is associated with depression because black clothing is the norm at funerals. But as anyone but the people quoted above can tell you, grief is not the same thing as depression. And I don’t even know where the fuck these administrators got the idea that wearing black is a sign of stress.
On the contrary, there are plenty of reasons schools should allow students, perhaps especially those they think have “mental health issues,” to dress in black. First off, if you think someone has mental health issues, the worst thing you can do is force them out of their comfort zone by demanding they dress in something more cheerful — perhaps a brightly-colored tee like this one offered by Engrish.com:
Is that the point of this pointless clothing restriction? Black = bad and everything else is OK?
Second, black has always been a power color when it comes to clothing. Darker colors are slimming, which is why some people opt to wear black. Black is empowering, which is why some people who may have self-esteem issues feel more confident while wearing a color that generally isn’t associated with the shiny, happy people who don’t experience the same problems they do.
And let’s not forget the Oakland Raiders — the first team to embrace a color scheme that heavily favored black. It wasn’t just the madmen roaming the defensive backfield that struck fear in the hearts of their opponents. It was also the inherent badassness of turning a color most people don’t consider a color into an easily recognizable representation of the team’s swaggering field presence that paid homage to the pirates of the open seas that inspired its logo. (It also created a voracious fanbase that contributed to the intimidation factor.) Thanks to the Raiders, plenty of other sports teams have gravitated towards more black-focused uniforms, recognizing the inherent intimidation factor of the color, which makes those wearing it more fearless, while simultaneously making those wearing “lighter” colors appear far less imposing.
Black is magic. It’s the best magic. It can give people who need a bit more confidence the boost in confidence they need. Plus, there’s really no reason to alienate fans of The Cure. They’re alienated enough already, even while singing along in a crowded stadium with 50,000 other fans to songs each fan individually believes only speaks to them. (Full disclosure: I am a fan of The Cure and plenty of actual goth bands on top of that. I even paid good money to subject myself to an underwhelming Bauhaus reunion concert around the turn of this century.)
So, there are many good reasons to allow students to wear black, especially those who might suffer from mental health issues or any of the other anxieties that accompany attending public schools. If this school really cared about these students, it would not have enacted this policy.
The additional justification of this stupid policy change only makes things. The statement sent to KFOX14 contains this sentence:
This decision, carefully considered and approved by the Campus Improvement Team—comprising parents, faculty, staff, and community stakeholders—aims to foster a positive self-image among students and more effectively showcase the school’s colors and pride.
Great. It apparently consulted all the “community stakeholders.” But nowhere does it say the school consulted any actual mental health care professionals, who likely would have strongly cautioned against forcing every student — no matter their own personal issues — bend a (not-clad-in-black-anymore) knee to the school’s “colors and pride.”
Also, the “stakeholders” weren’t all the parents, apparently. Plenty of parents are complaining about the new policy, which suggests the only “stakeholders” that mattered were those that agreed to this stillborn mandate that says some black is good, but all black is bad.
If you want more stupidity, you’ve got it, courtesy of the school’s uniform policy, which demands students wear only school colors, ONE OF WHICH IS BLACK.
Bottoms: Khakis or blue jeans. No rips, tears, distressing, cargo pockets, extra pockets, or hidden pockets. Bottoms must be worn at the waist and length must be at the fingertips or beyond when the arm is fully extended.
Tops: Hunter green or black polo with a collar in a plain style or with a Charles logo.
Sweaters: Hunter green or black crew neck sweatshirts in a plain style or with a Charles logo. No pockets. No hoods.
What the fuck. Black is cool and good when the administrators decide that it represents school spirit by only covering half of a student’s body. But it’s suddenly a “bad” color when it spreads to their legs. This is some old-school dumbfuckery and anyone complaining about it is absolutely in the right, even without citing mental health experts the school couldn’t be bothered to consult before issuing this mandate.
So, what happens now? Well, some of it is already happening. Parents are complaining. And if enough parents complain, it may force reconsideration. Students are, of course, welcome to disobey this policy, but possibly at the expense of their education. Since it only governs what students wear, it’s almost impossible to challenge it in court. It only covers the color of clothing, rather than any messages that might be written on that clothing, which means it probably won’t be considered a First Amendment issue.
Shaming the school is probably the best option. That’s what’s happening here. Hopefully, the school will be forced to explain its decision in greater detail. And when that happens, the administration will be exposed. It’s clear no mental health professionals were consulted. This is just the collective brain fart of a bunch of people who had bad experiences with people (and perhaps not even students!) wearing mostly black clothing. This is some seriously stupid shit and no parent, student, or taxpayer should be willing to put up with it.
Finally, I’m leaving you with this, a track that celebrates not only “head to toe, I’m dressed in black,” but a blues pioneer, roughly in that order:
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A challenge for the mainstream media: can you stop saying that Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist?
Over the past few years, we’ve had a number of posts highlighting just how laughable it is that Elon Musk claims that he’s a “free speech absolutist.” He never has been. Remember that even before he took over Twitter, he had a long history of suppressing and attacking speech that challenged him. He had fired employees who spoke up in ways he didn’t like. He banned someone from buying a Tesla for complaining about a Tesla launch event. He’s fired union organizers. He threatened to sue a Tesla critic and intimidated the guy enough that he stopped writing about Tesla.
And, of course, since taking over the platform, he has shown time and time again that he’s no friend of free speech. Remember, he’s filed at least three lawsuits against critics in some form over their speech. He sued CCDH for a report about hate speech on ExTwitter. He sued Media Matters for an article showing ads next to horrible content. And, most recently, he sued GARM for having the temerity to suggest advertisers check to make sure websites will keep their brands safe before advertising.
All of those are the opposite of free speech absolutism. They are entirely about abusing his own wealth and power to use the power of the state to crush entities for their own free speech.
Musk’s Free Speech Mantra Collides With Crackdowns on Hate Speech and Disinformation
And it’s not just the headline writers (often different than the article authors). The piece by reporters Kurt Wagner and Michael Shepard starts out with the same framing:
Elon Musk’s absolutist version of free speech has thrown the world’s richest man and his X social-media platform into the crosshairs of governments worldwide.
In the UK, officials are weighing tougher rules for sites like X after a surge of online disinformation fueled an outbreak of riots. In India, X was ordered this year to remove posts and block certain accounts in response to farmer protests. And in Brazil, Musk is in a running battle with the nation’s highest court over its orders to suspend users who had circulated fake news.
This is not just lazy. It’s wrong. It’s not just accepting Musk’s own false framing as fact, it’s literally misleading readers. Musk often takes to saying that you shouldn’t listen to the mainstream media, and this is one case where he’s right.
Musk’s position has never actually been an “absolutist” version of free speech. He himself has admitted that what he means by free speech is “that which matches the law.”
Of course, this is nonsensical. The most important concept of “free speech” is that it is to protect against government suppression of speech. Under Musk’s definition, there is no such thing as free speech, because the government is still allowed to pass any laws it wants to suppress speech.
Taking it even further, the idea that it is Musk’s “absolutist version of free speech” that is getting him yelled at by other countries is silly. Musk has willingly bent over to remove speech at the behest of authoritarian leaders he likes, each time falling back on his “that which matches the law” rhetoric to justify it.
As McSweeney’s rightfully parodied, Musk’s position on free speech is a variation on: “I will defend free speech to the death. Or until an autocrat asks me to stop.” Except with one addendum: “but if the leadership of the country is just slightly to the left of my own politics, I will once again stand for free speech.”
Musk’s conception of free speech has never been absolutist by any stretch of the imagination. It has been entirely “we should allow the speech I like, and not allow the speech I dislike.” This, of course, is many people’s incorrect understanding of free speech.
Yes, some people like to pretend that his version of free speech is about allowing more people to say more things on ExTwitter, but even that is false. Musk has been banning people for much more arbitrary and capricious reasons than Twitter ever did before. While he has his own free speech rights to moderate however he wants as the owner of the platform, his own moderation spasms are way more chaotic and stupid than anything that the previous regime did.
Yes, every website learns that it needs to do some level of moderation. That’s the whole content moderation learning curve. Without that, your site is filled with spam and garbage. There can be vast differences in how one travels that learning curve, and some approaches can be more speech supportive than others. But nothing that Elon has done suggests he’s any more supportive of free speech than any other site.
So why is Bloomberg claiming that Musk is taking an absolutist free speech stance?
That’s accepting his false framing of the situation. The reality is that Musk has no principled support for free speech beyond “I want to unban some assholes who got banned by Twitter for violating policies I disagreed with, namely mocking trans people.” Now that he’s in control of Twitter he’s implementing the same kinds of moderation policies, just more chaotic and less principled.
And his constant legal attacks on those who speak out against him should make it clear that he’s very much a censorial litigator, rather than a free speech absolutist.
His claims of being a free speech absolutist and the rare fights he takes on with governments (whose politics all seem to differ from his own) have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with him. He wants to play to his base who has been deluded by articles like this Bloomberg piece to believe that Musk actually cares about free speech, or he wants another chance to make himself out to be a “free speech martyr.”
Free speech means something. Free speech absolutism means something. Elon understands neither, and the media is doing its readership a total disservice by accepting Elon’s framing.
A true free speech absolutist vision for social media would include things like building on an open protocol, which removes the ability of governments to pressure individual companies to do their censorial bidding. It would also mean regularly standing up to all governments that seek to suppress speech via coercion and threats. Elon hasn’t done any of that.
Last June scientists warned that low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites constantly burning up in orbit could release chemicals that could undermine the progress we’ve made repairing the ozone layer. Researchers at USC noted that at peak, 1,005 U.S. tons of aluminum will fall to Earth, releasing 397 U.S. tons of aluminum oxides per year to the atmosphere, an increase of 646% over natural levels.
Numerous companies, most notably Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, are working on launching tens of thousands of small LEO satellites in the coming years. A new report by U.S. PIRG adds to concerns that these launches haven’t been thought through environmentally, noting that the disposable nature of such satellites means 29 tons of satellites will re-enter our atmosphere every day at peak.
After years of delays, the FCC did recently release rules requiring that satellites be removed from orbit within five years to help minimize “space junk.” But the organization notes that very little if any thought was given by innovation-cowed regulators toward the environmental impact of so many smaller satellites constantly burning up in orbit:
“We shouldn’t rush into deploying an untested and under-researched technology into new environments without comprehensive review. Over just five years Starlink has launched more than 6,000 units and now make up more than 60% of all satellites. The new space race took off faster than governments were able to act.”
The steady launches are also a notable pollution concern, the report notes, releasing “soot in the atmosphere equivalent to 7 million diesel dump trucks circling the globe, each year.” Space X has consistently played fast and loose with environmental regulations, with regulators even in lax Texas starting to give the company grief for releasing significant pollutants into nearby bodies of water.
These concerns are on top of additional complaints that the light pollution created by these LEO satellites are significantly harming astronomical research in a way that can never be fully mitigated. And again, the problems we’re seeing now are predominately caused by Musk’s Starlink. Bezos and other companies plan to launch hundreds of thousands of more satellites over time.
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be a game changer for those completely out of range of broadband access. It’s also proven useful during environmental emergencies and war. Getting several hundred megabits per second in the middle of nowhere is a decidedly good thing, assuming you can afford the $120 a month subscription cost and up front hardware costs.
But while Starlink is great for global battlefields, vacation homes, yachts, and RVs, it’s not truly fixing the biggest problem in U.S. broadband right now: affordability. It lacks the capacity to really drive competition at the scale it’s needed to drive down rates, and as its userbase grows it’s inevitably going to require more and more heavy-handed network management tricks to ensure usability.
So while these LEO services are a helpful niche solution to fill in the gaps, they come with some fairly notable caveats, and it’s generally more economically and environmentally sound to prioritize the deployment of fiber and then fill in the rest with 5G and fixed wireless. It’s a major reason why the Biden FCC retracted a wasteful billion-dollar Trump handout to Starlink, something that made MAGA cry.
