A Dutch anti-immigration influencer who has promoted conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement” appears to have had her authorisation for visa-free travel to the UK revoked.
Migration numbers certainly lend some support to that replacement idea. So what is it that makes it a conspiracy theory?
And yes, we need something more than that it is either wrong or unfashionable.
Erfan Soltani reportedly facing imminent execution
Erfan Soltani is reportedly facing execution in Iran on Wednesday after he was tried, convicted and sentenced, following his arrest on Thursday.The 26-year-old was arrested in Karaj, a city on the north-west outskirts of Tehran, at the peak of the protests before the internet black-out. Soltani is one of the many thousands of protesters arrested last week.
Amnesty International has highlighted his case, warning of concerns that Iranian authorities might “once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent”.
According to information gathered by Amnesty, the group said an informed sourced learned on 11 January that officials had told Soltani’s family he was sentenced to death. Soltani had lost contact with loved ones on 8 January amid mass protests and the regime’s internet shutdown, the group said.
Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner after China, according to monitors. Last year, it hanged at least 1,500 people, Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said.
Likely that they do this hundreds of times, if not thousands.
The question then becomes, well, what happens next? A very harsh calculus – do they hang enough to cow the population, or does the population get enraged enough to start hanging back, from lampposts?
No, I have no insight into what does then happen.
No woman or child should live in fear of having their image sexually manipulated by technology. Yet that is what many have faced in recent days with Grok.
The technology to do this exists. The technology is not exclusive to Grok. There are open source AIs that can do this – perhaps not as well but that’s only a matter of time. We’re in Cnut territory therefore.
Liz Kendall is the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
A thousand years and they’ve still not got the message.
Downing Street has condemned the move by X to restrict its AI image creation tool to paying subscribers as insulting, saying it simply made the ability to generate explicit and unlawful images a premium service.
There has been widespread anger after the image tool for Grok, the AI element of X, was used to manipulate thousands of images of women and sometimes children to remove their clothing or put them in sexual positions.
Or even, don’t be such a Cnut.
The tool is out there, the ability to do this exists. It’s not limited to any one platform, there are open source equivalents and so on. OK, maybe the open source is a generation – 6 months say – behind but it’ll undoubtedly get there. A tide that simply cannot be commanded to recede.
Iran was plunged into a complete internet blackout on Thursday night as protests over economic conditions spread nationwide, increasing pressure on the country’s leadership.
While it was unclear what caused the internet cut, first reported by the internet freedom monitor NetBlocks, Iranian authorities have shut down the internet in response to protests in the past.
Even, could be useful to have essential infrastructure that is not provided by the state……
Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told Times Radio: “[This] will send a really massive chilling effect on everyone else who’s discussing the subject [internet regulation] at the moment.”
The Americans have a very clear view of what free speech means. You get to say it.
“We desperately need a wide ranging debate on whether and how social media should be regulated in the interests of the people. Imran Ahmed gave evidence to the select committee’s inquiry into social media, algorithms and harmful content, and he was an articulate advocate for greater regulation and accountability.
The Americans are against rancid little shits who say otherwise.
Well, there we are.
Sarah Rogers, an official at the state department, posted on X: “Our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”
Quite.
The UK has given its final warning to Roman Abramovich to release £2.5bn from the oligarch’s sale of Chelsea FC to give to Ukraine, telling the billionaire to release the funds within 90 days or face court action.
Keir Starmer told the House of Commons the funds from Abramovich, who is subject to UK sanctions, would be converted into a new foundation for humanitarian causes in Ukraine and that the issuing of a licence for the transfer was the last chance Abramovich would have to comply.
Rich bloke they don’t like very much. Steal his stuff.
Britain’s the home of civil liberty doncha know?
The former federal minister Josh Frydenberg said on Wednesday the event at the beach had been inadequately protected.
“How, with some 1,000 people here in a heightened threat environment, did we just have three police, ill-equipped to provide the first and fundamental duty of both the state and the federal government, to protect the safety of their citizens? We need answers, we need solutions, we need action.”
A couple of thousand people around a beach area and park. The real question is why would anyone have to worry about whether 20 odd police (in the whole area) isn’t enough policing. We’re not going to turn the whole of life into an armed camp now, are we?
Or there’s the other one the FSU told me about. A 14-year-old boy was identified as being a threat because of a painting he did in his art lesson. It was a portrait of Nigel Farage. Later he asked a teacher if she liked his work and what she thought of illegal asylum seekers pouring into the country. He became, immediately, a “safeguarding concern”, and when his dad complained to the school he was told — in a lengthy essay, which I have seen — to basically sling his hook. The essay cited the Equality Act 2010 to suggest that the boy’s apparent liking for Nigel Farage and disaffection with the level of immigration “could potentially highlight discrimination against personal attributes that are legally protected”. In other words, in this case, as in the two above, individuals were persecuted and identified as safeguarding concerns because they shared the views of the majority of the population.
It’s just not called censorship. Yet you end up on a register anyway, barred from many a job.
I suppose it’s all about who sits on these boards. What kind of person thinks to themselves one evening: hell, I’ve got time to spare. Do you know what I’d really like to do? Sit on a safeguarding board and stop people getting jobs if they don’t agree with my political views.
Call me a cryptofascist but I think just one kind of person makes that kind of decision, and they are probably not the easy-going, amiable, centrist coves you might wish were entrusted with such responsibilities. They are people who are motivated by the single idea that their views are right and inviolable and anyone who transgresses them deserves all they get
One of those things I keep saying. As soon as there is such a cefntre of power in a society then those who desire power over others will vie to conquer that centre. So whatever the initial aims, however pure the set up, it will always be colonised by the same vile little shits.
Its most recent action was to slap a €120m fine on Elon Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter) for making users pay for blue tick authentification without doing any effective verification.
As opposed to, say, trying to fine into oblivion anyone saying things against the current political zeitgeist.
India’s telecoms ministry has privately asked smartphone makers to preload all new devices with a state-owned cybersecurity app that cannot be deleted, a government order showed, a move likely to antagonise Apple and privacy advocates.
Now, not that I know this, but I would suspect that a very wide definition of security is being used here. The ability to check who is using naughty words perhaps. Voicing badthink.
OK, one part of that is not true. It’s not that I do not know this and merely think it. Given how governments work I do know this….
This term, the US supreme court will decide whether a law prohibiting conversion practices infringes on constitutionally protected free speech. During last month’s oral argument in that case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether the regulation wasn’t “just the functional equivalent” of another recent supreme court case. In June, the court upheld a ban on a different treatment – puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth. “It just seems odd to me that we might have a different result here,” she said. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, meanwhile, likened conversion therapy to a dietitian telling a client to do something physically harmful, saying: “I don’t think the state has to provide a study to show that the advice is not sound.”
The constitution doesn’t uphold freedom of medical treatment. It does freedom of speech. ‘Mazin’ that a judge is confused over that.
This before we get to what they’re going to try to define “conversion therapy” as. For some at lesat “You sure?” would count as that….
How could you suggest such a thing?
Ofcom has ordered social media companies to combat online misogyny by changing the algorithms that push hateful content to users.
The regulator has moved to crack down on the “manosphere” and violence against women as part of its mission to make Britain the safest place to be online.
It’s telling people what they may see or hear, not censorship.
Tsk.
Another defendant, Jérome C, a debt adviser, told the court he liked posting on social media from his sofa in the evening. “It was just humour,” he said. “Do you need a permit in France to crack a joke?”
It’s long been an offence to insult a public official over there. Now making jokes about Brigitte’s ladypenis is also – at least this case is claiming – illegal.
Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties
With some very civil libertarian ideas:
But now more than ever, Europe should hold large US tech firms accountable for anti-competitive market rigging, snooping on Europeans, and preying on our children. Brussels must hold Ireland accountable for failing to enforce Europe’s digital rules on US firms. Enforcement is not enough, however. Europe must progressively replace all non-EU “big tech” platforms and cloud services over the next decade with homegrown alternatives.
Can’t have the Yanks providing things the peeps like.
Along with the anti-coercion instrument, Europe should shut down social media “for you”-style algorithms, that recommend content the user has not asked for, on European soil until they are proven safe for democracy. Citizens – not the algorithms of foreign oligarchs beholden to foreign interests – should have the freedom to decide for themselves what they see and share online.
Civil liberty means only being allowed what the EU bureaucracy thinks you should have or see.
Provided most European governments agree, the European Commission could kick US goods and services out of Europe’s market, or apply tariffs to them. It can strip their intellectual property rights, block their investments and require reparations as a condition of readmittance to Europe’s market.
This is civil liberty apparently.
For decades Brussels has claimed that its market of 450 million rich people gives it unanswerable sway in trade negotiations.
Which is one of those areas where this whole idea goes wrong. The benefit of trade is the imports, not the existence of consumers. Forgetting that is what leads you into this sort of nonsense.
But then Ireland, eh? They didn;t so much get rid of the overwhelming influence of the Catholic Church in what you may see or do as switch that religious extremism to the EU. The attitude is still there – the priesthood should be controlling your life.
Software giant Palantir snubs ‘undemocratic’ digital ID scheme
The US-based company, which had been touted as a potential bidder, said that it would not seek any contracts around it
Global Witness* and Neck Dearden can stop hyperventilating. Because they really were lining up to say that the only thing wrong with it is that the American hypercapitalists would steal Our Data.
*They might be Global Justice Now by now.
For 24 long months now, Gaza has become the most dangerous place in the world to practise our profession. Israel prohibits foreign journalists from entering the territory, so the truth relies exclusively on Palestinian reporters – almost all of whom are members of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, affiliated to the IFJ. Too often they work without protection and without refuge for their families. And all too often, they are directly targeted.
So, all journos are locals. With their families and frieds – as well as themselves – all living under Hamas rule.
I would assume the same percentage of journos are Hamas as percentage of the population. But then I’d go further. Hamas are not known for being cuddly civil libertarians. So I’d assume that all output from journos accords with Hamas views. Not – necessarily – because the journos themselves are Hamas but because Hamas knows the journos, their families and friends and where they all live.
I’d expect simple self-preservation to mean that the news reported is the news Hamas wants reported.
As I’ve pointed out before we didn’t believe German media in 1944 (or Soviet in 1980 and so on) so why should we now?
In response to growing health concerns over their consumption, the UK government recently announced that the sale of energy drinks to anyone under the age of 16 will be banned in England.
…
In situations like this, the government’s role is not to micromanage
Astonishing how some people can believe two contrary things before breakfast. Because of course the not to micromanage is followed by:
but to act as a filter between commercial interests and vulnerable populations, including children and adolescents. Parents and consumers rely on the state to sift through scientific evidence, assess safety and regulate products that may do harm. When that process works well, it protects public health and allows us all to have one less thing to think about when choosing what to eat and drink in stores. The decision to ban energy drinks for under-16s shows that governments – grounded in evidence, informed by the medical community and acting in the public interest – can legislate in a positive way for people’s health.
That is, government should, even must, micromanage.
I’ve spent the last 18 years writing frankly, freely and without apology — a practice that’s becoming rarer in Britain. As far back as 2016 more than 3,300 people were detained or questioned over online posts, and recent coverage shows thousands more arrests under the Communications Act and Malicious Communications Act. Thoughtcrime is no longer fiction; it’s becoming policy. Even very recently, Lucy Connolly was sentenced after a post calling for mass deportations — her case has become a flashpoint in the debate over where free speech ends and criminality begins. (Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, The Guardian)
If my work has helped you make sense of the madness, or offered straight talk in a culture of cowardice, please consider donating. £2, £10, £25,000 — whatever it’s worth to you — helps me keep doing what the censors and bureaucrats would rather I didn’t: think independently and write without asking permission.
Democracy also isn’t the highest value anyway:
The arrest of Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted, was a departure from democracy, Donald Trump’s state department has said.
Free speech is about civil liberty, not democracy. And yes, to a great extent I would insist that civil liberty is the more imporant of the two.
