jdp23

jdp23, 10 months ago

Agreed, other laws are needed as well as this. The ADPPA consumer privacy bill is likely to get reintroduced later this session; last year’s version had some good features but also a lot of weaknesses, and big tech companies and data brokes are pushing to further weaken it. So it’ll be a battle to strengthen and pass it.

But ADPPA doesn’t apply to government agencies (and that’s not likely to change) so bills like Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale are important complements!

jdp23, 10 months ago

Thank you very much, that’s a great point – I’ll update the post to include it!

jdp23, 10 months ago

We’ll see. Cynicism is certainly justified – it’s very hard to pass a good privacy bill, and last year even though everybody supported it, it died in committee. On the other hand, it really does have bipartisan support, and there Congress is deadlocked in so many areas that they have an incentive to pass something.

Also, people I’ve talked to at EFF, ACLU, and Free Press all think that grassroots activism can help make a difference, and that right now is a key time … so it’s worth a try.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Thanks! Those are links to the version of the bill from last session; this year, the bill number in the House is HR 4639 and the text is at judiciary.house.gov/…/hr-4639-bill-text.pdf

That EFF action alert is also from last session, and has the old bill number; they don’t have a new one up yet as far as I know. So I linked to Free Press’ action page, which is more up-to-date.

jdp23, 10 months ago

It’s a plausible theory but at the House Judiciary Committee everybody in both parties voted “yes”! We’ll see what happens as things move forward. In the Senate, Rand Paul is a co-sponsor and Mike Lee’s a likely yes vote, so it’s not likely to be straight party-line.

jdp23, 10 months ago

No, bipartisan legislative support. It’s got bipartisan co-sponsorship both in the House (Warren Davidson is an R, Sara Jacobs is a D) and Senate (Rand Paul is an R, Ron Wyden is a D). And House Judiciary Committee just voted 30-0 to advance it.

Of course as you say we don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors, and there are also legislators in both parties who aren’ supportive, but there really is bipartisan support for this.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Why is it stupid? The article isn’t setting up the tension, it’s describing the tension that exists.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Yep. Federation could conceivably respond to the EU’s requirement for interoperability – and they could do it in a way that puts a lot of barriers to people actually moving, so works well for them. Of course the EU would say that didn’t meet the requirement, which would lead to a multi-year legal battle and eventually Meta would probably pay a billion dollar fine (as they routinely do – it’s just a cost of doing business) and promise to remove the barriers (which they wouldn’t, and then there would be another multi-year legal battle).

But none of that works if the EU won’t allow Threads for some other reason!

Still, my guess is that they’ll figure out a way around the EU’s objections to Threads … we shall see …

jdp23, 10 months ago

That’s true, although I’ve been saying all along that Threads’ potential arrival is a great opportunity whether or not it happens.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Yes, I certainly constructed the sentence to highlight the different reactions. Later in the article I say “And by prioritizing their desire to be embraced by Meta over queer and trans people’s safety, Meta’s cis advocates undercut their claims to be allies in ways that may be hard to recover from” – which is true no matter what Meta does or doesn’t wind up doing with Threads. Of course it’s not the only thing going on, but I think it’s important enough that it’s worth highlighting.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Not at all. I talked about this in In chaos there is opportunity! Meta’s potential arrival is a likely to be a good thing for the fediverse no matter whether or not they actually go forward with it.

jdp23, 10 months ago

I think we’re in violent agreement here: getting the EU to drop their objections is certainly one way around them! So yeah, they’ll probably try to use the demand for Threads to push back on the DMA’s anti-trust-ish provisions (which as I understand is the current blockage). And then they’ll try to use their ActivityPub integration to push back on the interoperability requirements, no doubt characterizing them as unrealistic. It’s predictable but still irritating.

jdp23, 10 months ago

That just shows how little Eugen understands the privacy risks. Why just blocking Meta’s Threads won’t be enough to protect your privacy once they join the fediverse has an example of how federating with Meta can expose private data. And, data can be public but hard to discover (a profile for somebody who only makes followers-only and local-only posts); federating with Threads adds exposure.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! has plenty of perspectives from both sides.

jdp23, 10 months ago

That’s right, as the article says

And from the perspective of the “free fediverse” that’s not welcoming Meta, the new positioning that ActivityPub integration is “a long way out” is encouraging. OK, it’s not as good as “when hell freezes over,” but it’s a heckuva lot better than “soon.”

jdp23, 10 months ago

That’s incorrect. Followers-only posts (and local-only posts on instances that have them) aren’t public. Profiles that don’t make public and unlisted posts aren’t discoverable. And, as Threat modeling Meta, the fediverse, and privacy discusses, there are plenty of things that could be done to reduce the amount of data that’s public.

Also, that’s only one of the many reasons people oppose federating with Meta.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Nobody’s talking about taking the choice away from others. Some instances are saying they’ll federate with Threads, you’re free to move your account there. Or as you say, people who want to hang out with the bully can download the Threads app right now!

jdp23, 10 months ago

Yeah, the current thinking is just to have the one magazine for now unless people have good reasons why that won’t work. Of course a lot depends on whether there are any active bugs federating between the two systems but I think right now things are copacetic.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Thanks!

jdp23, 10 months ago

It used to be a slang term people trying to sound hip would use, but that was many decades ago – 1930s or 1950s I think.

jdp23, 10 months ago

Very good point, thanks much!

jdp23, 10 months ago

Not sure about the hashtags, good question. There will also be separate posts on Mastodon – here’s an early example, guaging awareness – and it’ll be interesting to see what gets traction where

jdp23, 10 months ago

Testing this out … if I leave a comment here, will i show up on kbin thread?