Censorship

The coming TikTok security disaster

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As I’m writing this, the US is set to ban applications that access TikTok’s Internet service on January 19. What no one is talking about is the security nightmare that will result.

The ban won’t forbid access to TikTok; it will just forbid the preferred way to access it. App stores in the US won’t be allowed to offer the client application. Lots of other sources will still offer it. Some will be legitimate. Others will put up Trojan Horse applications. Scammers will target users trying to keep access to their accounts. A lot of devices will be infiltrated with malware.
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Trump reverses the meaning of censorship

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In Newspeak, freedom is slavery. In Trumpspeak, freedom of speech is censorship.

Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to head the FCC, has declared his intent to “smash the censorship cartel” using the agency’s power. According to the Washington Times, “He is threatening the platforms with revocation of their federally granted immunity against content-based lawsuits.” He’s presumably referring to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, one of the few parts to survive legal challenges. It says that in general operators of websites that allow public posting of commentary can’t be held liable for what third parties post. Without it, website operators would have to keep a quick finger on the “Delete” button to keep potentially defamatory comments from showing up. They’d need to err on the side of caution. Many sites would probably find it easiest to eliminate the comments section.
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The march of Internet censorship

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Legislation all over the USA is attacking freedom to communicate over the Internet. Some states have enacted age-verification requirements that endanger anonymous speech and limit minors’ access to information they may urgently need. Others are enacting bans on “deceptive” information, leaving open the questions of just what will be deemed deceptive and how people can defend themselves against such claims. An example of the latter is California’s AB 2655, recently signed into law. FIRE and the First Amendment Coalition have issued statements against it, while left-wing media sites have often been sympathetic. I posted earlier about how AP gave Harris’s call for “oversight” and “regulation” of websites as merely wanting “increased accountability.”
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Bobo the clown

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Harvard University has long been a center of controversy. Often it’s an embarrassment to the university. But the Dean of Social Science there, somebody called Lawrence D. Bobo, has come up with a brilliant solution: Make the faculty shut up. Bobo’s babble just has to be read to be believed:

Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business? And does the broad publication of such views cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct?

Yes it is and yes it does.

A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.

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Surgeon General wants compulsory warnings on the Web 1

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Threats to freedom on the Internet keep popping up. The latest outrage is a proposal by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to compel social media websites to deliver a warning of “potential mental health harms.” He doesn’t claim that social media have been scientifically shown to damage mental health; rather he says “social media has not been proved safe.”

What would it take to “prove” them safe? When the burden of proof is shifted to the negative, people can make unlimited claims of possible harm, and the defenders must somehow show these arbitrary assertions are false. Murthy has even cited lack of evidence as a cause for panic.

He has asserted that the situation is an “emergency.” In other words, he wants Congress to rush the decree through without debate.

Compulsory speech is, except in limited cases, a violation of the First Amendment. Freedom of speech has to include the freedom not to speak. Americans may not be compelled to pledge allegiance to the flag or to recite a prayer. Forcing website owners to say “We haven’t proven our site won’t harm your mental health” is an outrage.
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Book burying under White House pressure 3

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According to a New York Post article, the White House successfully pressured Amazon to put some books under a “do not promote” order. The books remained available but presumably are less discoverable than comparable books not under the order. The order was issued “the same day Amazon officials met with the White House.”

The order covers “anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective.” The article doesn’t mention any titles, so I can’t judge their worth. Would a book that called attention to legitimate risks or exaggerated claims of effectiveness fall under that category? Biden said, “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” a claim whose inaccuracy many people have learned firsthand.
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New Hampshire bill seeks to mandate book rating system

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A bill before the New Hampshire legislature, Senate Bill 523, is a frontal attack on school libraries in the state and the vendors that provide books to them. The bill is sponsored by State Senator Kevin Avard. It’s the kind of lunacy you’d expect in Kansas or Texas, not New Hampshire.

It would set up a bounty system for bringing complaints against material which is allegedly “harmful to minors.” Anyone claiming to be aggrieved under the bill’s terms would be able to sue for damages. A person bringing a successful suit would be guaranteed a minimum payout of $1,000. What Avard is trying to set up isn’t just a way to remove inappropriate books but a way to incentivize gratuitous challenges.
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Hugo nominees mysteriously declared ineligible

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The detailed statistics for the 2023 Hugo Awards voting are finally out, and they’ve triggered a controversy. A number of nominees were declared ineligible without explanation.

Kevin Standlee, who has played important roles in running many fan conventions, noted:

An overwhelming majority of the members of WSFS who voted on the site of the 2023 Worldcon (at the 2021 Worldcon in DC) selected Chengdu, China as the host of the 2023 Worldcon. That meant that the members of WSFS who expressed an opinion accepted that the convention would be held under Chinese legal conditions. Furthermore, those people (including me) who suggested that there might be election irregularities were overridden, shouted down, fired from their convention positions, and told that they were evil and probably racist for even suggesting such a thing.

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To kill a student’s mind

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A teacher who wants to limit students’ minds and close off their horizons is a vile person. To Kill a Mockingbird is a powerful, moving novel about racial injustice in the South. It presents a world that’s different from today’s America and presents the suffering and hope of the people who suffered and tried to correct its injustices. A man defends the target of a false criminal accusation at great personal cost. For this reason, four progressive teachers in the state of Washington wanted to keep their students from reading it. A Washington Post article tells the tale.

In their formal challenge to the book in the Mukilteo School District, the teachers claimed, “To Kill A Mockingbird centers on whiteness. … It presents a barrier to understanding and celebrating an authentic Black point of view in Civil Rights era literature and should be removed.” Three of the four are white, just by the way. Claiming that the novel “centers on whiteness” shows either gross ignorance of the book or gross dishonesty. In normal use, the Civil Rights Era began in the 1950s, and the novel is set during the Depression. It’s true that it doesn’t celebrate what it was like to be black in Alabama in those days.
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