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from the legislators-protecting-us-from-bad-things dept.
In Colorado:
Concerning the regulation of digital communications, and, in connection therewith, creating the digital communications division and the digital communications commission
Session: 2021 Regular Session
Subjects: Professions & Occupations
Telecommunications & Information Technology
Bill Summary
The bill creates the digital communications division (division) . . . On an annual basis and for a reasonable fee determined by the commission, the division shall register digital communications platforms . . . such as social media platforms or media-sharing platforms, that conduct business in Colorado . . . A digital communications platform that fails to register with the division commits a class 2 misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 for each day that the violation continues.
The division shall investigate and the commission may hold hearings . . .
- Include practices that promote hate speech; undermine election integrity; disseminate intentional disinformation, conspiracy theories, or fake news; . . . .
- May include business, political, or social practices that are conducted in a manner that a person aggrieved by the practices can demonstrate are unfair or discriminatory to the aggrieved person. . . . .
- Practices that target users for purposes of collecting and disseminating users' personal data, including users' sensitive data
- Profiling users based on their personal data collected
- Selling or authorizing others to use users' personal data to provide location-based advertising or targeted advertising; or
- Using facial recognition software and other tracking technology.
The full text of the bill is here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Thursday March 04 2021, @06:57PM (2 children)
Do you not realize that the people doing the censoring in times past, along with large chunks of the population, also felt their censoring was good? And that they were "forced" into such actions by the completely intolerable actions of those they chose to oppress?
So many people seem to lack something: is it empathy, knowledge, understanding? The "bad guys" throughout time in history? They just about always thought they were the good guys. And they had millions of followers who also thought they were the good guys. They rationalized their awful actions by convincing themselves there was no other option, and it was ultimately the only option to deal with a otherwise devastating force of evil that would destroy society if left unconstrained.
I wish our history education in school (and that includes university) was not so completely worthless. History repeats itself is not just some kind-true saying. It is a literal and accurate observation. History is practically on a sine wave as we repeat the exact same actions throughout history, all while convincing ourselves this time it's different, and ultimately ending up with the exact same outcomes. A man who has read a few generations of history, at practically anywhere and any time is effectively done with history. The technologies, names, and specifics will change - but the broad plots, actions, and outcomes never change. Were history a student she'd have long since been expelled for plagiarism.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 04 2021, @09:21PM (1 child)
I do realize that.
But does everyone else realize that?
If you know that has happened in the past, then why try to push the limits of sanity on what anyone would say to see if you can bait someone, especially someone with power, to repeat the mistakes of history?
I'm not suggesting self censoring. I'm really pointing my finger at anyone trying to construct something so outside the norms that nobody would ordinarily think about. The mentality that thinks "I should be able to say anything", and so therefore I'm going to try to see if I can concoct something so outrageous that I trigger some censor somewhere, who has power, to do something about it.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @04:18AM
You *are* not only suggesting self censoring, but also overt censorship. The things the government in cahoots with corporations are trying to censor have little to do with some sort of extreme concoction. It's 'Hey I'm concerned this election was not legitimate, and there may have been bad actors. Let's gather what evidence we can, if there is any, and discuss it.' *CENSORED* This is not a people being forced into anything. It's the people in charge of our government, in cahoots with corporations, that desperately do not want anybody discussing or publicly gathering and sharing evidence on election fraud. Now why might that be?
Similarly in academics. If you don't obey the groupthink they face extreme reprisal and major difficulties in career advancement. And this is something completely independent of the quality of your work. This leads to a system where poor quality science that advances the groupthink is left mostly unchallenged, and with a complete lack of science to the contrary simply because those who might pursue such topics are inhibited from day -1. Or even now in our educational system. Children are being politically indoctrinated from an extremely young age, and we are banning books like Dr. Seuss because reasons.
None of this has to do with some genuine and imminent threat that justifies these actions. The rationalization for such is simply that, and as it always is - a rationalization.