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virovac · 2 months

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Duty of Care update The updated duty of care says that a platform shall “exercise reasonable care in the creation and implementation of any design feature” to prevent and mitigate those harms. The difference is subtle, and ultimately, unimportant. There is no case law defining what is “reasonable care” in this context. This language still means increased liability merely for hosting and distributing otherwise legal content that the government—in this case the FTC—claims is harmful

[so still incentivizes overzealous censorship]

Attorneys General Can Still Use KOSA to Enact Political Agendas ... it is true enough that the amendments to KOSA prohibit a state from targeting an online service based on claims that in hosting LGBTQ content that it violated KOSA’s duty of care. Yet that same official could use another provision of KOSA—which allows them to file suits based on failures in a platform’s design—to target the same content. The state attorney general could simply claim that they are not targeting the LGBTQ content, but rather the fact that the content was made available to minors via notifications, recommendations, or other features of a service. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that the latest version of KOSA will stop state officials from targeting vulnerable communities. And KOSA leaves all of the bill’s censorial powers with the FTC, a five-person commission nominated by the president. This still allows a small group of federal officials appointed by the President to decide what content is dangerous for young people. Placing this enforcement power with the FTC is still a First Amendment problem: no government official, state or federal, has the power to dictate by law what people can read online.

#kosa #electronic frontier foundation #bad internet bills #stop kosa

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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The Cory Doctorow Humble Bundle

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

It's been 21 years and 29 days since Tor Books published my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. In the years since, Tor has published every one of my novels, sending me around the USA and Canada to talk about them. Now, they've teamed up with Humble Bundle to sell 18 of my ebooks on a name-your-price basis, with part of the proceeds going to benefit EFF:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books

I've been associated with EFF even longer than I've been published by Tor! My first novel came out while I was working EFF's first-ever booth at CES. I split my time between the booth and my motel room, where I paid $0.25/call to dial up to Earthlink's local number and manage the launch-day publicity. Over the years, I've benefited immensely from Tor's editorial and publicity departments, working with brilliant publishing people like Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Patty Garcia, Dot Lin, Laura Etzkorn, Elena Stokes, Sarah Reidy, Lucille Rettino, and of course, Tor founder Tom Doherty.

But I like to think that it was a two-way street. Tor and I have come a long way together on ebooks: most visibly, they allowed me to publish several novels under Creative Commons licenses (my first book was the first ever CC book, coming out just weeks after the licenses themselves launched). As my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden said at the time, "Ebooks have the worst hours-in-meeting-to-dollars-in-revenue ratio of anything in my publishing career. Why not?"

https://craphound.com/down/download/

Just as important – but less visible – was Tor's willingness to let me insist that all my books be published without DRM, meaning that anything you buy on say, Amazon, can be moved to any reader program if you decide to start getting your ebooks elsewhere. This worked so well that in 2012, Tor became the first major publisher in the world to ban DRM on all its ebooks, flying me, John Scalzi and Charlie Stross to New York City to announce it this at a big, splashy event at Book Expo America:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130512022634/https://tor.com/blogs/2012/06/tor-books-announces-e-book-store-doctorow-scalzi-a-stross-talk-drm-free

Tor's unique status as the sole major DRM-free publisher in the world was well timed! That same year, I curated the very first Humble Ebook Bundle, which was very top-heavy with Tor titles, and raised more than $1,000,000 for the writers, publishers and charities associated with it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121017215636/http://www.humblebundle.com/

That opened the floodgates to a series of Humble Bundles, tempting other major publishers to dabble with DRM-free, including Simon and Schuster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-I5QyAfglU

And Harpercollins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHMLfeCrCrE

Now, 12 years after that inaugural Humble Ebook Bundle, I find myself honored by being the subject of a bundle of my own (it helps that I've written a hell of a lot of books in the intervening years). Included in the bundle are (nearly) all of my Tor novels and novellas: The Lost Cause; "The Canadian Miracle" (a Lost Cause story); Red Team Blues; Radicalized; Walkaway; "Party Discipline" (a Walkaway story); Pirate Cinema; Rapture of the Nerds (with Charlie Stross); For The Win; Makers; Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town; Eastern Standard Tribe, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Little Brother, Homeland, Attack Surface, and "Lawful Interception" (a Little Brother story).

(The sole exclusion is The Bezzle, which came out two weeks ago and is already a USA Today national bestseller!)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Also included in the bundle is Poesy the Monster Slayer, my 2020 picture book for the littlies:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627/poesythemonsterslayer

All these books are delivered as DRM-free epub files. The Bundle runs for the next three weeks, and the minimum buy-in is $18 – that's just $1/book (full retail value is $187). Of course, you can name a higher price, and, as with all Humble Bundles, you can adjust the final split to share out the money between me, EFF, and the Humble folks.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/03/humbly-bundled/#eff-too

#pluralistic #ebooks #publishing #science fiction #tor books #tor #macmillan #drm #drm-free #eff #electronic frontier foundation

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esinofsardis · 9 months

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The letter I wrote to my state reps about the KOSA bill, which is going to vote this morning

I am begging you to reject and publicly oppose the Kids Online Safety Act. This bill is a huge violation of privacy as well as places undue restrictions to citizens freedom of speech and freedom to choose for themselves the kinds of content they wish to interact with. No matter how well intentioned, this bill erases the ability of families to self determine what their children can access. IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE GOVERNMENT TO MAKE PARENTING DECISIONS FOR EVERY CHILD IN AMERICA. This is an egregious overreach of federal power. It is the responsibility of families to monitor or restrict children's internet use. Additionally, this bill allows BOTH the government and private corporations to further track and target the online use of adults. By requiring age proof from websites, these profit-driven companies will have even more ability to violate users privacy with aggressive advertising, social discrimination (shadow banning), and online profiling. This bill infantalizes the American people, who have a right to self determination when it comes to online content for themselves and their young children.

Feel free to copy or adapt! I'll be calling and reading this to them this afternoon--but if you're available now please call immediately!!

#stop kosa #kosa #us politics #internet freedom #electronic frontier foundation

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nando161mando · 5 months

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18 digital rights groups urge Meta to stop silencing Palestine.

#freespeech #palestine #meta

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b3aches · 8 months

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Stop the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act | EFF Action Center

The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act would lead to a second-class online experience for young people, mandated privacy-invasive age verification for all users, and in all likelihood, the creation of digital IDs for all U.S. citizens and residents. The bill will make it illegal for anyone under 13 to join a social media platform, and require parental consent, verified by the government, for anyone between the ages of 13 and 18 to do so. The world envisioned by the authors of this bill is one where everyone has less privacy and less power to speak out and access information online.

This bill is technically an alternative to the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act, but it is a bad one. No one should have to hand over their driver’s license just to access free websites. Having to hand over that driver’s license to a government program doesn’t solve the problem. The end result of this law would likely be that a huge number of young people—particularly the most vulnerable—would lose access to social media platforms, which can play a critical role for young people in accessing resources and support in a wide variety of circumstances. Tell your Senator you oppose it.

#EFF Action Center #electronic frontier foundation #EFF #Protecting Kids on Social Media Act #stop kosa #kosa #Kids Online Safety Act #Internet

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plethoraworldatlas · 5 months

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apparently some Tumblr funnyman author decided to go to bat for "AI" (it was only a matter of time) and in addition to the same old weak defenses, they held up the EFF's AI opinions as another defense, despite the fact that the EFF has rightfully been criticized for how weak and naive those opinions are. "You can't regulate using AI because big companies would just ignore it/pay fines and do it anyway (amazing stance for an activist group to take)", or "you can't reform copyright to take into account AI because you would have to reform copyright law which is controlled by big companies and thus impossible (AMAZING stance for activists to take)". And another defense, not from the EFF but from a certain subsect of people who treat their stance as gospel, "You can't reform copyright law to actually be useful to small artists because don't you know art isn't labor, artists are all big corporations or ivory tower wine drinking brunch club elites, and anyone who actually wants things like royalties or to be able to live even in part from their artistic labor, let alone doesn't want the work they make fed to the garbage word scrambling genie machine are actually stealing from the "real poor"/are class traitors/etc."

#anti ai #electronic frontier foundation #“We can't make changes to society to actually make people's lives better Corporations/the government wouldn't like that/it would be too har #The EFF has also lately had a habit of going notably softer on AI used in surveillance which is completely crazy for them to do #The EFF does good work to stop KOSA and other surveillance BS but their not techpreists whose every word is right or gospel

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 months

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Seventy-one California police agencies in 22 counties must immediately stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with law enforcement agencies in other states because it violates California law and could enable prosecution of abortion seekers and providers elsewhere, three civil liberties groups demanded Thursday in letters to those agencies.

The letters from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) gave the agencies a deadline of June 15 to comply and respond. A months-long EFF investigation involving hundreds of public records requests uncovered that many California police departments share records containing detailed driving profiles of local residents with out-of-state agencies.

ALPR camera systems collect and store location information about drivers, including dates, times, and locations. This sensitive information can reveal where individuals work, live, associate, worship—or seek reproductive health services and other medical care.

“ALPRs invade people’s privacy and violate the rights of entire communities, as they often are deployed in poor and historically overpoliced areas regardless of crime rates,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Pinsof. “Sharing ALPR data with law enforcement in states that criminalize abortion undermines California’s extensive efforts to protect reproductive health privacy.”

The letters note how the nation’s legal landscape has changed in the past year.

“Particularly since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, ALPR technology and the information it collects is vulnerable to exploitation against people seeking, providing, and facilitating access to abortion,” the letters say. “Law enforcement officers in anti-abortion jurisdictions who receive the locations of drivers collected by California-based ALPRs may seek to use that information to monitor abortion clinics and the vehicles seen around them and closely track the movements of abortion seekers and providers. This threatens even those obtaining or providing abortions in California, since several anti-abortion states plan to criminalize and prosecute those who seek or assist in out-of-state abortions.”

Idaho, for example, has enacted a law that makes helping a pregnant minor get an abortion in another state punishable by two to five years in prison.

The agencies that received the demand letters have shared ALPR data with law enforcement agencies across the country, including agencies in states with abortion restrictions including Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Since 2016, sharing any ALPR data with out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies is a violation of the California Civil Code (SB 34). Nevertheless, many agencies continue to use services such as Vigilant Solutions or Flock Safety to make the ALPR data they capture available to out-of-state and federal agencies.

California law enforcement’s sharing of ALPR data with law enforcement in states that criminalize abortion also undermines California’s extensive efforts to protect reproductive health privacy, specifically a 2022 law (AB 1242) prohibiting state and local agencies from providing abortion-related information to out-of-state agencies.

For one of the new letters from EFF, ACLU NorCal, and ACLU SoCal: https://eff.org/document/sample-alpr-demand-letter-tracy-police-department

For information on how ALPRs threaten abortion access: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/automated-license-plate-readers-threaten-abortion-access-heres-how-policymakers

For general information about ALPRs: https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-alpr

Agencies that received the demand letters include:

• Alhambra Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Antioch Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Arcadia Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Beaumont Police Department (Riverside County)

• Brawley Police Department (Imperial County)

• Brentwood Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Buena Park Police Department (Orange County)

• Burbank Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Chino Police Department (San Bernardino County)

• Clovis Police Department (Fresno County)

• Cypress Police Department (Orange County)

• Desert Hot Springs Police Department (Riverside County)

• Downey Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• El Centro Police Department (Imperial County)

• El Dorado County Sheriff's Office (El Dorado County)

• Escondido Police Department (San Diego County)

• Folsom Police Department (Sacramento County)

• Fontana Police Department (San Bernardino County)

• Fountain Valley Police Department (Orange County)

• Garden Grove Police Department (Orange County)

• Gilroy Police Department (Santa Clara County)

• Hemet Police Department (Riverside County)

• Hercules Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Hermosa Beach Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Humboldt County Sheriff's Office (Humboldt County)

• Imperial County Sheriff's Office (Imperial County)

• Imperial Police Department (Imperial County)

• Kern County Sheriff's Office (Kern County)

• Kings County Sheriff's Office (Kings County)

• La Habra Police Department (Orange County)

• La Palma Police Department (Orange County)

• Laguna Beach Police Department (Orange County)

• Lincoln Police Department (Placer County)

• Lodi Police Department (San Joaquin County)

• Madera Police Department (Madera County)

• Manteca Police Department (San Joaquin County)

• Menifee Police Department (Riverside County)

• Merced Police Department (Merced County)

• Montebello Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Monterey Park Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Murrieta Police Department (Riverside County)

• Novato Police Department (Marin County)

• Oakley Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Ontario Police Department (San Bernardino County)

• Orange County Sheriff's Department (Orange County)

• Orange Police Department (Orange County)

• Oxnard Police Department (Ventura County)

• Palm Springs Police Department (Riverside County)

• Palos Verdes Estates Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Pasadena Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Pittsburg Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Rio Vista Police Department (Solano County)

• Ripon Police Department (San Joaquin County)

• Riverside County Sheriff's Department (Riverside County)

• San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department (San Bernardino County)

• San Bernardino Police Department (San Bernardino County)

• San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office (San Joaquin County)

• San Pablo Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• San Rafael Police Department (Marin County)

• San Ramon Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• Seal Beach Police Department (Orange County)

• Simi Valley Police Department (Ventura County)

• Stockton Police Department (San Joaquin County)

• Torrance Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Tracy Police Department (San Joaquin County)

• Tustin Police Department (Orange County)

• Walnut Creek Police Department (Contra Costa County)

• West Covina Police Department (Los Angeles County)

• Westminster Police Department (Orange County)

• Westmorland Police Department (Imperial County)

• Woodland Police Department (Yolo County)

That’s 71 agencies in 22 counties:

• 12 in Orange County

• 11 in Los Angeles County

• 8 in Contra Costa County

• 7 in Riverside County

• 6 in San Joaquin County

• 5 in San Bernardino County

• 5 in Imperial County

• 2 in Ventura County

• 2 in Marin County

• 1 each in El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, Placer, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara, Solano, and Yolo counties

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indiesellersguild · 16 days

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Right now, Chiarra is speaking with Katharine from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about what to do when you get screwed over by a big tech platform.

The first day of the convention is almost over, but you can still see tomorrow's panels LIVE and the recordings to everything you missed by buying a ticket for as little as 1$ through the link above.

#workers rights #electronic frontier foundation #union strong #united we bargain #small business #ISG convention

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geekysteven · 1 year

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Accidentally contacted ELF instead of EFF but they also have really creative ways to evade surveillance. I might be trapped in this realm though

#Eff #electronic frontier foundation

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jbfly46 · 4 months

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#EFF #electronic frontier foundation #surveillance #electronic surveillance #police #police state

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mpanighetti · 1 year

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Amazing write-up from the EFF on the legal ramifications of WotC revoking OGL 1.0a, which might actually give creators more legal flexibility on using WotC’s trademarks (in the US anyway):

#one d&d #dungeons & dragons #d&d #d&d 5e #open gaming license #ogl 1.1 #ogl #wizards of the coast #electronic frontier foundation #OGL 1.0a

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szepkerekkocka · 1 year

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#eff #electronic frontier foundation #cover your tracks

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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Today is my 22nd anniversary at the Electronic Frontier Foundation!

22 years ago, I flew with two colleagues to LA and discovered a entertainment industry cartel conspiracy to ban general purpose computers. This led to a suit that killed the FCC's Broadcast Flag order. It was the defining day of my adult life.

If you want to wish me a happy EFF-aversary, you can join EFF and help pay the wages of people like me doing work like this.

#electronic frontier foundation #broadcast flag #fcc #billy tauzin #analog holes #atsc #cptwg #bpdg #beware of the leopard #eff

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libraryben · 1 year

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According to leaks reported last week, the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is planning to revoke the open license that has, since the year 2000, applied to a wide range of unofficial, commercial products that build on the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons. The report indicates that this wouldn’t simply be a change going forward, but would affect existing works that relied on the license. The old license would be revoked for existing uses, and people who have used on it will be forced to adopt new terms or renegotiate with the company, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of game giant Hasbro.

Obviously, this would be a rude and unfair thing to do to people who have accepted the invitation of the open gaming license (OGL) to create new games and stories that build upon Dungeons and Dragons. But would it be legal? Even more interesting, would revoking the OGL actually give some third parties more freedom to operate, given that the OGL forced them to promise not to do some things that copyright and trademark law otherwise permit? Let’s find out.

#Dungeons and Dragons #Fair Use #Open License #open gaming license #electronic frontier foundation

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nando161mando · 3 months

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We live in a culture where companies are too quick to fulfill police requests for personal data on users–and it’s a situation ripe for abuse.

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sherwinarnott · 1 year

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The Fediverse Could Be Awesome (If We Don’t Screw It Up) | Electronic Frontier Foundation

#fediverse #mastodon #microblogging #twitter #electronic frontier foundation

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