2025-12-18 00:58:27
For various reasons today has been a pretty shit day, but this offers a spark of hope:
“…the law, which conditioned Louisianans’ ability to access protected speech online on their willingness to hand over sensitive government ID, violates the First Amendment”
Obligatory Babylon 5: The avalanche has already started, it’s too late for the pebbles to vote.
Via:
2025-12-17 17:14:58
One of the biggest problems with regulation is that a lot of little people lose out and then eventually you grow a generation who don’t know what they’re missing, so it never gets undone:
2025-12-13 23:41:48
Presumably this will soon be in the House of Lords:
The Danish government has introduced a controversial bill that would make it illegal to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to bypass geo-blocking on streaming services like Netflix. The proposal, which is currently under review during the holiday season, aims to criminalize VPN usage when accessing content that is not normally available in Denmark, such as American streaming services. Ordinary citizens found in violation of this law could face fines as a result.
2025-12-13 22:57:09
does it matter that some kids are getting around the ban? a report commissioned by the government (but never fully released) warned non-compliance “snowballing and becoming normalised” would “potentially undermine” its effectiveness. [Cameron Wilson] wrote about it earlier this year here:
https://x.com/cameronwilson/status/1999674541199503663?s=20
“1 in 3 parents will help kids get around teen social media ban, government privately warned”
2025-12-13 17:56:54
“Parents get no say in whether to allow their fifteen-year-old to join Facebook or watch a documentary on YouTube. The government’s decree is not subject to parental override. Far from supporting parental authority, the Australian government has seized that authority for itself. To put it plainly, Australia has made its rule, dissenting parents be damned.”
https://netchoice.org/australias-social-media-ban-is-a-betrayal-of-free-speech-and-a-safe-internet/
2025-12-13 04:40:15
A Council paper now circulating (via Netzpolitik) among member states outlines a plan that would apply not only to telecom operators but to nearly every major digital service, including cloud platforms, domain hosts, payment processors, and even end-to-end encrypted messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal. Officials insist they do not intend to compromise encryption or read private messages. What they want is the so-called metadata: who contacted whom, from where, at what time, and through which service.
https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-revives-plan-for-year-long-data-retention