Real World News

https://news.sky.com/story/online-safety-bill-updated-proposals-will-make-uk-safest-place-to-go-online-government-says-12568070 Laws that will require social media sites and tech firms to prevent users being exposed to harmful content are being introduced to parliament after several major updates. The biggest firms must also address 'legal but harmful' content under the updated proposals The "legal but harmful" bit has always worried me, harmful is very subjective and could easily be abused. If any material is truly that harmful, they could just make it illegal and deal with it that way. This just seems like a way for them to censor unpopular or disa…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10600697/Facebook-sparks-censorship-row-blocks-controversial-Boris-Johnson-Angela-Rayner-quotes.html An experiment by civil liberties group Big Brother Watch used dummy accounts of fictitious ordinary citizens to post copies of the politicians' comments on the social media platform.

Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson 'shot at party as rival gangs clashed', says friend https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/23/black-lives-matter-activist-shot-head-numerous-death-threats/ ——- A speedy recovery and well wishes. One cannot help but see the poignant irony here, however.

I was caught up in this in 2020 (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8862935/Chemical-attack-leaves-15-people-battling-breath-man-walks-shops-restaurants.html) but have not heard anything about if the man was found guilty? How does one go about searching for outcomes?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/16/us-uk-russia-invasion-ingelligence-public-briefings The US and the UK have sought to fend off a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine in part by going public with an unusual amount of intelligence, hoping to rob Vladimir Putin of the element of surprise. What are your thoughts? For me there's a couple of things. These are the same governments who condemned Snowden and Assange for their actions. We were told that no matter how well intentioned, leaking classified information is wrong. Now it seems those same governments are actually quite happy to leak classified information when it's convenient. Rules for thee but …

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-60372815 I thought this would have blown over, like last March and the year before that. Concerning to say the least if he does do it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60293057 Porn websites in the UK will be legally required to verify the age of their users under new internet safety laws.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want-earn-it-bill-scan-all-online-messages People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages —not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate. Interested in hearing the police perspective on this because although EARN IT relates to the US it shares common themes with our own governments approach to the internet. There seems to be an assumption that police should be able to access any data you want as long as the proper channels (warrant, court order, or just having reasonable su…

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jan/24/julian-assange-wins-first-stage-of-attempt-to-appeal-against-extradition The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be able to go to the supreme court in the UK to challenge a decision allowing him to be extradited to the US to face espionage charges. Absolute disgrace how he's been treated. Trumped up charges to punish him for embarrassing the US.

https://www.engadget.com/the-uk-government-is-reportedly-planning-ad-campaign-attacking-end-to-end-encryption-101610703.html The UK government plans to team up with charities and law enforcement agencies on a public relations blitz created by M&C Saatchi advertising agency, the report states. The aim of the campaign is to relay a message that end-to-end encryption could hamper efforts to curb child exploitation online.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/feds-say-they-used-encrypted-messages-to-charge-oath-keepers-leader.html Federal investigators say they accessed encrypted Signal messages sent before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol, and used them as evidence to charge the leader of Oath Keepers, an extremist far-right militia group, and other defendants in a seditious plot My guess is they got access by directly examining the device of a participant in the chats, whether that was a suspect they arrested or another participant willingly handed them over. I doubt the underlying encryption itself was broken. While possible, there has never been any suggestion to s…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/10/a-data-black-hole-europol-ordered-to-delete-vast-store-of-personal-data EU police body accused of unlawfully holding information and aspiring to become an NSA-style mass surveillance agency

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-59727161 Four people accused of illegally removing a statue of Edward Colston have been cleared of criminal damage. Sage Willoughby, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, and Jake Skuse, were charged after a monument to the 17th Century slave trader was pulled down and thrown into Bristol's harbourside last June. I'm struggling to see what their defence actually was. They don't seem to raise any legal arguments, or challenge the evidence against them, or anything like that. It seems to be entirely a moral argument that slavery was bad therefore they think their actions were justified.

Beggars belief!’ Over 1,000 blades and other weapons seized at crown courts over pandemic https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1546792/crown-court-knives-guns-pandemic-covid-news-Alex-Cunningham-ont