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An Anonymous Coward writes:

'No longer acceptable' for platforms to take key decisions alone, EU Commission says

It is "no longer acceptable" for social media giants to take key decisions on online content removals alone, following the high profile takedowns of US President Trump's accounts on Facebook and Twitter, the European Commission has said.

Trump's accounts have been suspended by the two platforms for inciting calls to violence ahead of the violent riots that hit Washington's Capitol Hill last week.

Speaking to lawmakers on Monday (11 January), Prabhat Agarwal, an official who heads up the eCommerce unit at the European Commission's DG Connect, noted how the EU executive's Digital Services Act attempts to realign the balance between effective content removal and preserving freedom of expression online.

"It is no longer acceptable in our view that platforms take some key decisions by themselves alone without any supervision, without any accountability, and without any sort of dialogue or transparency for the kind of decisions that they're taking," Agarwal said.

"Freedom of expression is really a key value in this," he told the European Parliament's internal market committee.

The comments came following concerns raised by some lawmakers in the European Parliament following the suspension of Trump's social media accounts. In doing so, platforms giants had demonstrated that they yield a disproportionate degree of power over the freedom of speech online.

"The fact that platforms like Twitter and Facebook decide who can speak freely is dangerous," Green MEP Kim van Sparrentak said.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Trump impeached for 'inciting' US Capitol riots:

The US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at last week's Capitol riot.

Ten Republicans sided with Democrats to impeach the president by 232-197.

He is the first president in US history to be impeached twice, or charged with crimes by Congress.

Mr Trump, a Republican, will now face a trial in the Senate, where if convicted he could face being barred from ever holding office again.

But Mr Trump will not have to quit the White House before his term in office ends in one week because the Senate will not reconvene in time.

Mr Trump will leave office on 20 January, following his election defeat last November to Democrat Joe Biden.

The Democratic-controlled House voted after several hours of impassioned debate on Wednesday as armed National Guard troops stood guard inside and outside the Capitol.

[...] Impeachment charges are political, not criminal.

Also at Newsweek, c|net, Al Jazeera, Washington Post.

[Ed Note - The linked article has been revised since submission. The quoted text has been revised accordingly. - Fnord]

Original Submission

martyb writes:

It's been one heck of a week:

Against the backdrop of record-setting numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections in the US and around the world, there was turmoil in Washington, DC. As court cases surrounding the presidential election were filed and dismissed, a close race in Georgia was coming down to the wire and with it control of the US Senate. While the US Congress was completing the Electoral College tally and certification, a mob formed outside — and eventually broke into — the US Capitol. This resulted in a 4-hour lock-down. Eventually, the intrusion was repelled, and the Electoral College count was completed: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was confirmed as the 46th president of the United States of America.

Conspiracy theories have flourished. Propaganda has streamed forth across multiple platforms. Tempers have flared.

And SoylentNews has been there for you. And have you ever spoken up! Two of the most-commented stories in the site's nearly seven-year history were posted in just the past week!

Insomuch as the activities in the US Capitol were far from the US' most shining moments, neither were things all unicorns and rainbows on SoylentNews. Tempers flared. People were attacked and called names. I even accidentally deleted a story and the 17 comments attached to it! [NB: Problem addressed: the delete button no longer appears by default for our editors.]

IRC (Internet Relay Chat):

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Twitter permanently suspends Trump's account:

US President Donald Trump has been permanently suspended from Twitter "due to the risk of further incitement of violence", the company says.

Twitter said the decision was made "after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them".

Mr Trump had earlier been locked out of his account for 12 hours.

Twitter then said that it would ban Mr Trump "permanently" if he breached the platform's rules again.

Reacting to the permanent ban, Trump 2020 campaign adviser Jason Miller tweeted: "Disgusting... if you don't think they're coming for you next, you're wrong."

It comes after Mr Trump tweeted several messages on Wednesday, calling the people who stormed the US Capitol "patriots".

Hundreds of his supporters entered the Capitol building as the US Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. The ensuing violence led to the deaths of four civilians and a police officer.

The siege took place just hours after Trump addressed supporters and told them: "We will never give up; we will never concede."

[...] On Thursday, Facebook said it had suspended Mr Trump "indefinitely". The popular gaming platform Twitch also placed an indefinite ban on the outgoing president's channel, which he has used for rally broadcasts. So has Snapchat.

Two online Trump memorabilia stores were closed this week by e-commerce company Shopify. On Friday, Reddit banned its "donaldtrump" forum for the president's supporters.

[...] The big question now is, can Trumpism survive without the backing of mainstream media? Or will it simply slip into the shadows of the internet?

(Emphasis retained from original.)

Also at Ars Technica, CNET

Full Twitter explanation at: blog.twitter.com

Original Submission

hendrikboom writes:

It appears open source is going to be respected in the White House.

Open-source developer and manager David Recordon named White House Director of Technology

With a background in open source, open standards, and security, Recordon may be ideal for President Joe Biden's White House.

Article didn't say much about the distinction between open-source and freedom.

canopic jug writes with additional information:

Facebook has gotten two of its own onto President-elect Joe Biden's transition team. Austin Lin and David Recordon will serve as deputy directory of technology and director of technology respectively.

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced two technology officials to serve in the incoming administration, both of whom served in the Obama White House.

2021-01-07 14:44:44 UTC: UPDATE (See below the fold).

martyb writes:

Pro-Trump rioters breach the US Capitol on historic day in Congress:

Supporters of President Donald Trump breached the US Capitol on Wednesday while Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College's votes for president and vice president.

The Capitol has been put on lockdown and the certification vote has been paused. Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the building. House and Senate leadership is safe and in undisclosed locations, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Congress' counting of electoral votes is typically little more than an afterthought. But this joint session was expected to be a contentious affair that would last late into the evening and possibly on Thursday. Some Republicans are objecting to the count and delaying the inevitable certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Also at AlJazeera (In Pictures: Pro-trump mob storms US Capitol building) and c|net (Mob storms Capitol forcing halt of election vote count).

[2021-01-06 22:33:53 UTC; UPDATE] NOTE: This is a chaotic time.

The Electoral College votes are currently being confirmed and tallied. Runoff votes in Georgia are being tallied and the results may swing the balance of power in the US Senate. The Georgia secretary of state [has been] relocated from [State] Capitol for security reasons. Mitch McConnell goes off on Trump. Pro-Trump reporter gloats over access to fleeing Hill staffer's computer. And Trump hand-picks replacement for Atlanta's US attorney after surprise resignation.

Let's please try and keep the discussion civil.

Also, please be polite and share your popcorn!

[Updates Begin]:

With the days counting down to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, the Trump administration has been undertaking a series of actions that will make it more difficult for its replacements to reverse any of its policies or pursue new ones. This is especially true in the area of environmental regulations, where both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior have recently issued decisions.

[...] The EPA's new rule [PDF link], which will be formally published [on January 6, 2021], is an attempt to set additional standards for the evidence it considers when establishing new regulations for pollutants. In principle, the rule sounds great: it wants the data behind the scientific papers it uses to be made publicly available before it can be used to support regulatory decisions. In reality, the rule is problematic, because many of these studies rely on patient records that need to be kept confidential. In other cases, the organizations with the best information on some environmental hazards are the companies that produce or work with them, and they may not be interested in sharing proprietary data.

The practical result of this sort of change is that the EPA would be precluded from relying on scientific papers that contained the clearest indications of public harm. This would almost certainly lead to weaker rules or a decision not to regulate at all.

The EPA defends the rule in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

McConnell introduces bill tying $2K stimulus checks to Section 230 repeal:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has thrown a wrench into Congressional approval of an increase in government stimulus relief checks from $600 to $2,000. The House voted overwhelmingly on Monday to increase the payments, as President Trump had advocated for. Instead of voting on the House bill, however, McConnell blocked it and instead introduced a new bill tying higher stimulus payments to Section 230's full repeal, according to Verge, which obtained a copy of the bill's text.

It's a tangled web, but the move is tied to Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $740 billion in defense spending for the upcoming government fiscal year. "No one has worked harder, or approved more money for the military, than I have," Trump said in a statement about the veto, claiming falsely that the military "was totally depleted" when he took office in 2017. "Your failure to terminate the very dangerous national security risk of Section 230 will make our intelligence virtually impossible to conduct without everyone knowing what we are doing at every step."

Section 230 has nothing to do with military intelligence; it's a 1996 law designed to protect Internet platforms. At its highest level, the short snippet of law basically does two things. First, it grants Internet service providers, including online platforms, broad immunity from being held legally liable for content third-party users share. Second, it grants those same services legal immunity from the decisions they make around content moderation—no matter how much or how little they choose to do.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption

In the past decade, 15 states have legalized a regulated marijuana market for adults over 21, and another 17 have legalized medical marijuana. But in their rush to limit the numbers of licensed vendors and give local municipalities control of where to locate dispensaries, they created something else: A market for local corruption.

Almost all the states that legalized pot either require the approval of local officials – as in Massachusetts -- or impose a statewide limit on the number of licenses, chosen by a politically appointed oversight board, or both. These practices effectively put million-dollar decisions in the hands of relatively small-time political figures – the mayors and councilors of small towns and cities, along with the friends and supporters of politicians who appoint them to boards. And these strictures have given rise to the exact type of corruption that got [Jasiel] Correia in trouble with federal prosecutors. They have also created a culture in which would-be cannabis entrepreneurs feel obliged to make large campaign contributions or hire politically connected lobbyists.

For some entrepreneurs, the payments can seem worth the ticket to cannabis riches.

For some politicians, the lure of a bribe or favor can be irresistible.

[...] It's not just local officials. Allegations of corruption have reached the state level in numerous marijuana programs, especially ones in which a small group of commissioners are charged with dispensing limited numbers of licenses. Former Maryland state Del. Cheryl Glenn was sentenced to two years in prison in July for taking bribes in exchange for introducing and voting on legislation to benefit medical marijuana companies. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson's administration is the target of law enforcement and legislative probes into the rollout of its medical marijuana program.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Would Make Illegal Streaming a Felony:

Providing relief via direct assistance and loans to struggling individuals and businesses hit hard by COVID-19 has been a priority for federal lawmakers this past month. But a gigantic spending bill has also become the opportunity to smuggle in some other line items, including those of special interest to the entertainment community.

Perhaps most surprising, according to the text [PDF link] of the bill (a combination of COVID relief and annual government spending), illegal streaming for commercial profit could become a felony.

It's been less than two weeks since Sen. Thom Tillis released his proposal to increase the penalties for those who would dare stream unlicensed works.... [I]t's had very little time to circulate before evidently becoming part of the spending package. If passed, illegal streaming of works including movies and music tracks could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in jail.

[...] On Monday night, lawmakers voted in favor of the package.

The provision was not entirely without opposition, as TechCrunch notes: