Who's trying to break the internet today?

[wonko the sane?]

You're thinking on it backward. It's not about charging the corporations more, it's about permission to gouge aunty pam and grandpa to visit amazon and facebook. It was never about giving preference for bandwidth, because bandwidth is functionally cheap and easy to scale. It's about being able to upcharge for websites people are addicted to or are almost irremovably integrated into peoples daily lives.

It's about exploiting the populace, not the corporations.

 

[NovaSaber]

Well, it's no surprise that things are borked in Russia, but still:

Russia Clones Wikipedia, Censors It, Bans Original

Ruviki is intended to be a more “trustworthy” source of information for Russians by editing out anything that makes the Russian government look bad.

www.404media.co

 

[Pocket]

You're thinking on it backward. It's not about charging the corporations more, it's about permission to gouge aunty pam and grandpa to visit amazon and facebook. It was never about giving preference for bandwidth, because bandwidth is functionally cheap and easy to scale. It's about being able to upcharge for websites people are addicted to or are almost irremovably integrated into peoples daily lives.

It's about exploiting the populace, not the corporations.

And I say that even collectively, what you'd get from doing that is small potatoes compared to what you'd get fleecing multibillion dollar companies. If they wanted to make more money off their customers, they'd just jack up prices across the board because that's less effort and comes with insurance against your customers just finding other websites to go to instead of the ones you're upcharging for.

 

[NovaSaber]

The main issue is that they'd charge the owners of sites to not have their sites slowed down, which means the profitable sites owned by large corporations would be the main ones that wouldn't become less usable.
(Then they might also upcharge customers for those sites if they think they can get away with it.)

 

[Dekafox]

Not entirely unexpected, TikTok is suing to block the law forcing their sale that was attached to the recent foreign aid/funding bill:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/tiktok-bytedance-sue-block-us-law-seeking-sale-or-ban-app-2024-05-07/

 

[NovaSaber]

Romney admits that the TikTok ban is because social media makes propaganda less effective:

Romney Admits Push to Ban TikTok Is Aimed at Censoring News Out of Gaza | Common Dreams

A conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Republican senator offered an "incredible historical document" showing how the U.S. views its role in the Middle East.

www.commondreams.org

 

[KidTDragon]

Republicans to Mitt:

 

[Dekafox]

A real privacy law? House lawmakers are optimistic this time

Last time, a popular bipartisan proposal failed to advance.

www.theverge.com

Apparently this is going in for markup tomorrow. On the one hand, it could make targeted ads illegal. On the other, there's concern it could override existing state laws that are stricter than it(due to interstate commerce clause in the Constitution). Since that article, it's also had COPPA 2 fodled into it(which seems to be covering collecting data on kids, not the age verification stuff, at a glance) and the data broker bit now has a universal deletion request added.

The bill itself:

https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/PRIVACY_04_xml_d1d6b82f10.pdf

 

[CoffeeHorse]

If they ban targeted ads altogether, then the age verification stuff becomes unimportant. It was an issue because sites already aren't supposed to be collecting data from kids, so if they want to keep collecting data then they need to find a way to make it a two tiered system. If they can't collect data on any of us then we're all in the same tier again.

 

[Dekafox]

New York passes legislation that would ban 'addictive' social media algorithms for kids

The New York state legislation will ban social media platforms from algorithmically recommending content to children.

www.nbcnews.com

Interesting, but I have no idea how they'd enforce it, other than just banning all algorithm-driven social media - and then how that would even work without a Great Firewall of New York State. Pretty much all the culprits are big enough to sue though I suppose.

 

[wonko the sane?]

I don't think the idea is enforceable, but I do think something like this needed to be done: if only to prove that governments, even if only on a local level, will not abide by proven to be bad for everyone and everything software will not be tolerated.

I hope more states, and eventually federal level governments across the world do this. Social media (as it is currently configured and used.) is just ******* bad, for everyone.

 

[Dekafox]

ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses

As social networks and porn sites move towards a verified identity model, the actions of one cybersecurity researcher show that ID verification services themselves could get hacked too.

www.404media.co

 

[wonko the sane?]

Is your service dependent on the internet?

Then it will get hacked. It's been TWENTY YEARS we've lived in an online and integrated society: how do they not know this by now?

 

[Rhinox]

Good news, with the Chevron decision net neutrality policy means nothing. There is no longer any enforcement method that doesn't involve massive legal cases.
But, at the same time, that means that attempting to enforce ID laws online also have to jump through those hoops. no enforcement teeth means they have no real way to "protect the children".

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Because the joke writes itself…
Yesterday, Microsoft themselves were the ones trying to break the internet.
Actually a double whammy from a borked update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform blue screened thousands of Windows systems (Mac and Linux were unaffected), leading to multiple airlines shuttering service. Meanwhile, Microsoft themselves rolled out a “configuration change” on Azure, knocking out many of the Microsoft 365 cloud apps, including Defender, Teams, OneNote and OneDrive. I know I wasn’t able to log onto Xbox’s services yesterday around 6 PM CST.

Massive Microsoft Windows Outage Bricks PCs, Halts Flights Worldwide

A CrowdStrike Falcon update caused Windows PCs to get the blue screen of death, disrupting businesses around the world.

www.pcmag.com

 

[CoffeeHorse]

And the only lesson businesses will learn from this is that they need a better AI to automatically review updates before they automatically install.

 

[Paladin]

another "PROTECT THE CHILDREN" bill heading to vote.

Senate to push forward with child online safety bills this week

The Kid’s Online Safety Act and Children’s and the Teens Online Privacy Protection Act are likely to pass the Senate by next week. The House may takes its time.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Dekafox]

And it passed:

The KOSA Internet Censorship Bill Just Passed The Senate—It's Our Last Chance To Stop It

The Senate just passed a bill that will let the federal and state governments investigate and sue websites that they claim cause kids mental distress. Don't let politicians and bureaucrats decide what people should read and view online.

www.eff.org

 

[wonko the sane?]

I mean... social media actually IS harming people mentally...

I disagree with the law in principle: cause, especially in the US and things being the way there are right now, they will abuse it to punish organizations and websites that don't tow whatever line, but... social media actually is harming people mentally.

 

[Paladin]

The "social media harm" this bill was designed to prevent is trans people existing.

Lawmaker Says the “Kids Online Safety Act” Aims to Protect Kids from “The Transgender”

KOSA has bipartisan support but LGBTQ+ advocates say it would be harmful.

www.them.us