"If people keep voting for proper control of their country’s borders, and politicians keep ignoring or belittling them, it’s inevitable that some of those people will think: “Voting doesn’t work", writes Michael Deacon
https://t.co/jRCHhUq5wX
Recent algorithm changes on X may be unfairly hammering Brave users. And there's a larger issue here about bad interactions between robots and privacy measures.
@nikitabier@brave
My friend Jay Maynard, who some of you may know as Tron Guy, just got permabanned off X for "inauthentic behavior". His appeal was swiftly denied.
Jay is not a spammer, scammer or engagement farmer; he is, in fact, exactly the kind of good citizen X says it wants. Jay asked Gemini for analysis, and now thinks he knows what happened.
Brave, as a privacy measure, randomly changes the identity presented to sites in order to avoid tracking by the ad vampires. Gemini suggested that some code at X interpreted this as spammy behavior using multiple browsers. If so - and this does seem plausible - everybody trying to protect their privacy with Brave is at risk.
This is a general problem, not just an X glitch or a Brave issue. Social media sites are increasingly relying for security on forms of heuristic AI that are prone to unacceptably high false-positive rates.
More specifically, platforms are increasingly treating a user's refusal to be tracked, fingerprinted, and categorized as a hostile act. When a site makes it impossible to connect via a privacy-focused user agent without getting flagged as a malicious bot, it stops being "security" and effectively becomes a retaliatory lockout for protecting oneself.
Worse yet, such system architecture provides no circuit breaker - humans are only rarely and exceptionally asked review for errors. Jay's appeal denial came back so fast that it was obvious no meat-brain ever saw it. He has filed complaints within the Minnesota Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau, because what else can he do? The robots have locked him out.
Badly designed robots and zeal to squeeze human oversight out of the system forces regular citizens to rely on state law enforcement or consumer protection bureaus.
Allow me to gently suggest to the people running X that unless you want politicians poking their noses into your business and imposing constraints on you that you are not going to like, you need to fix your security and appeal processes so running to the law isn't necessary.
iCloud no longer offers Advanced Data Protection in the UK.
It does not matter if you go through Age Verification or not.
This has nothing to do with protection and everything to do with control.
Hi folks !😃
This week, YouTube has annoyed MPs & the ‘numpty class’ by bombarding them with adverts that suggest it is up to parents rather than tech companies to restrict teenagers’ screen time.
They’ve plastered Westminster Tube in posters ahead of the Govt’s decision on whether to ban under-16s from social media, but the horse bolted on that one a long time ago as like in Australia, teenagers are tech savvy in getting around their ban.
As well as covering the wall next to the door as one enters the Houses of Parliament, the ads have also been placed directly onto ticket barriers as part of a lobbying operation.😂👌
A typical government response — rather than address what’s actually driving public frustrations they want to blame social media for spreading “illegal content” and encourage censorship.
The Online Safety Act already requires that platforms prevent users encountering or remove swiftly priority illegal content, which includes provoking violence or stirring up hatred. Platforms are expected to remove that content at a much lower than usual legal standard, namely, anything that platform can ‘reasonably infer’ could be illegal.
Tightening up these rules even further during a moment of national crisis risks legitimate political speech being removed from platforms, as they try to avoid the risk of large fines and jail time for executives.
🚨 This Secretary of State can already force Ofcom to block whatever she wants during any "crisis."
Zero parliamentary votes, zero debate—just her personal decree in deciding what you are allowed to see…
The new Online Safety Act update gives her even more dictatorial power to fast-track mass censorship of anything she labels "disorder" or “misinformation”
This isn't regulation—it's ministerial control with zero democratic checks.
#OnlineSafetyAct #CensorshipExposed
@leicesterliz The Online Safety Act has been shuttering speech - our own debate on Assisted Suicide Bill & separately on Digital ID was taken down live - meanwhile you try to impose even more
Measures to ‘protect kids’ which would result in spying on us all and digital id forced on all. No!
Those who use social media to incite violence and disorder are breaking the law.
Next week we will lay in Parliament an update to the Online Safety Act requiring services to take quicker action to remove illegal content circulating during times of crisis.
Raquel Welch, (1971) kicks a ball around in a Chelsea soccer uniform while filming Hannie Caulder in Arizona.
More iconic photos: https://t.co/HnEh68Mi27
Vickrum Digwa’s brother, Gurpreet Digwa, 27, lied to police that Henry Nowak hadn’t been stabbed and had racially attacked his brother, perverting the course of justice.
Police also recorded him conspiring with Vickrum in a police car.
Six months later, he was arrested on multiple weapons charges and is currently on bail.
Meanwhile, Reece Robinson, 21, threw two stones at the Southampton police protest, hitting no one, and was jailed for 2 years and 1 month within 7 days.