floreani

floreani, 9 months ago to random

literally just switched my out of office on for 10(!!) days holiday and the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 just dropped. this is a personal attack https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7085

floreani, 9 months ago to random

"this conference is essential for corporates, regulators, academics, educators and industry reps working to create safer spaces online." note the lack of advocates or civil society orgs.

and at $700 a ticket plus travel and accom, it's completely prohibitive for anyone like me to actually attend.

to be fair, the conference looks like a special kind of hell for anyone who is critical of the dominant online safety discourse and policy direction, but like, why bother even sending the invite.

floreani, 9 months ago to random

friends! If you’ve ever wondered what the heck all this digital rights stuff about, tonight’s the night! I’ll be delivering the Derek Fielding Memorial Lecture hosted by the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties from 6:30.

If you’re in Brisbane come along, or you can tune in online here: https://www.qccl.org.au/join-event

floreani, 9 months ago to random

More good news! The UK government has conceded that it's not technically feasible to scan encrypted messages without undermining user privacy.

A massive kudos to everyone in the UK who has been fighting back on the 'spy clause' in the UK Online Safety Bill for a long time.

Now, when the idea for scanning gets floated here in Australia, we can point to this and it will strengthen our ability to fight back too.
https://www.ft.com/content/770e58b1-a299-4b7b-a129-bded8649a43b?shareType=nongift

floreani, 9 months ago to random

This article attempts to frame the government's sensible decision not to require the implementation age verification as a lack of care for children’s safety.

But the thing is, the privacy and security risks of age verification make everyone less safe, including kids.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-05/children-bypassing-online-age-verification-at-risk-of-abuse/102813518/

floreani, 9 months ago to random

help I am trapped in a cycle of saying yes to doing a talk, becoming absolutely overwhelmed by stress because of it, doing the talk and it feeling nice, forgetting the horrors, and saying yes to doing more

floreani, 9 months ago to random

We fought this, and we won!!

This is the result of a lot of work from privacy and security advocates, researchers, sex worker groups, and members of the lgbtq+ community who worked really, really hard to show the fundamental flaws in age verification.

Well done friends!
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/31/roadmap-for-age-verification-online-pornographic-material-adult-websites-australia-law/

floreani, 9 months ago to random

It was a thrill and an honour to deliver a keynote at @pyconau this year

My goal was to give an overview of digital rights and show how the issues are interconnected and relevant to other social causes, do a roundup of key tech policy issues in Australia including their context, and leave people with some ways to take action

It was a fun challenge to squeeze this into 45 mins while (hopefully) not losing too much nuance. Huge thanks to the pycon team for having me :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnPwxH6wHzM

floreani, 9 months ago to random

hello! I wrote about digital rights activism and recurring rhetorical battles

I draw together the govt's tech response to the pandemic, invasive surveillance laws sold on anti-terrorism, and the current trends in online safety discourse which seeks to pit children's safety against privacy/security. These tactics are harmful (and tbh, exhausting)

I'm so grateful to the digital rights advocates that came before me and continue to show up, this shit is hard but important.

https://overland.org.au/2023/08/the-rhetoric-used-to-harm-your-digital-rights/

chrisjrn, 9 months ago to random

OMGWTFLIGHTNINGTALKS #PyConAU

floreani, 10 months ago to random

my drama kid past and former theatre aspirations really raise their heads when I'm writing a talk. 💅 the drama 💅

floreani, 10 months ago to random

hats off to the hacker who got into the servers of stalkerware LetMeSpy and wiped most of the data, leading the company to shut down. excellent

floreani, 10 months ago to random

last year I wrote about real estate agents collecting too much personal information, and how third-party platforms make this worse. I called for reform to the privacy act + state residential tenancy acts to better protect renters in the digital economy.

@drwaus has since done a lot of advocacy for renter digital rights -- which is especially important in our current housing crisis.

Here's an explainer with links to our work, submissions, and resources we find useful.
https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2023/08/07/renttech/

floreani, 10 months ago to random

me, summoning the will to talk about AI

floreani, 10 months ago to random

CHOICE is doing some great work in consumer data advocacy, don't get me wrong

But it is incredibly funny to me to have them pop up in my feed one moment telling me how to pick the best granola, and the next moment letting me know about the rampant use of facial recognition tech in Australia. It's a rollercoaster!

KathyReid, 10 months ago to TwitterMigration

So, it's been a while since I did an #Introduction #ConnectionList #TwitterMigration post where, I find interesting people for you to follow on #Mastodon, and use my reach to more closely connect the #Fediverse :fediverse:

@ANUResearch is the official Mastodon account of #ANU Research (I think, it all looks very legit, but I don't know the person behind the account) #research #university 🇦🇺

@drwaus is the new official account for Digital Rights Watch in Australia (h/t to all the good work Sam @floreani is doing in this space - don't forget to catch her #keynote at @pyconau later this month!)

@AoIR is the official Association of #Internet #Researchers account. Read more at https://aoir.org/about 🇺🇸

Professor @nilsph1 works in #knowledge organisation and information retrieval #IR at the Department of Archive, Library and Information Studies at #Oslo Metropolitan University @oslomet :flag-no:

@fionatribe is an #anthropologist, workplace #strategist and #ethnographer who works in #architecture and #OrgDesign 🇦🇺

@dcm is Dimitri Coelho Mollo, an Assistant #Professor in the Philosophy of #AI at #Umeå University :flag-se:

@anders is a #Communication strategist for #AI #Sweden :flag-se:

@rachaelvdm is a #MetaData #librarian #GLAM interested in #nature #art #history 🇳🇱 🇦🇺

@bentarnoff is a technical #writer, who recently wrote a brilliant piece on Joseph #Weizenbaum for The Guardian. You should read it. 🇺🇸

@observablehq is the official account of the #dataviz platform, based on #D3js from @mbostock

That's all for today, don't forget to share your own #ConnectionList, particularly as we say #RIPTwitter ❤️

floreani, 10 months ago to random

so you're telling me that Worldcoin, that dystopian silver ball that scans people's eyes to collect biometric data to go into a crypto project to create a "World ID", the one that manipulated people from lower-income communities to sign up in the beta period to reach the 2mil users for launch, that was co-founded by none other than Sam Altman

...is now being peddled as a way to distinguish between human and AI content? A problem that Altman played no small part in worsening?

floreani, 10 months ago to random

this article reveals such a shallow reading of the current AI landscape; an uncritical regurgitation of AI Industry bro talking points.

it's depressing how in Australia we have so many incredible academics and technologists, AND YET the state of tech commentary and mainstream public critique and discourse around technology here is often not only embarrassing but frankly, dangerous

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/technology/2023/07/13/tipping-point/

floreani, 11 months ago to random

hate making a submission to the inquiry into Australia's human rights framework like: please 👉 🥺 👈 can we have some rights?

nonsense no rights country smdh