Great example of how automation often makes things easier but not better. The former can be good so long as we don’t lose sight of the latter.

See, this is censorship.

What an epic—if illegal—rickroll. The best part in my book is repurposing student monitoring software.

Interesting read on privacy-focused phones—and related scams.

McConnell gets so close to recognizing the danger other Republicans pose to democracy, but he always stops just short.

I appreciate the way that Masnick uses examples from the news to call out how dumb some of these laws are.

I read Torba’s blog post last week but hadn’t been aware of the context. Interesting read.

This is why the EFF and others have concerns about overreach of even clearly well intentioned content moderation. CSAM is clearly despicable, but automated content moderation can make mistakes, and consequences for those mistakes aren’t small.

Masnick makes two good points here: The GOP seems to only care about content moderation in self-serving ways, but also we should be wary of political mandates for content moderation.

I want to be more involved with and aware of what the FCPS school board is up to—livestreaming seems like a good idea to me.

These numbers sound great, but what cost are we paying? I’m not talking about the $70,000, I’m talking about the hard to quantify costs of surveillance—which, as the ACLU of KY points out, are likely to disproportionately target communities of color. Except we can’t know that because the city won’t tell us where the cameras are.

This may be the most fascinating episode of Mormon Land I’ve ever listened to. It’s amazing how much the Latter-day Saint understanding and practice of temple rituals has changed over time.

On one hand, I strongly believe Trump should be held accountable for all laws he’s broken or flouted. On the other, I believe that the Espionage Act has been used as a crude cudgel by several presidential administrations, and it’s really important not to be sloppy here. The second doesn’t outweigh the first, but just like one can defend the FBI raid without putting the FBI on a pedestal of infallibility, we need to be critically minded about all this.

Interesting development here.

Such a bad idea. Normalizing Ring won’t make it any better—only worse.

I was not aware of this episode of history, and I feel more informed for it. It’s an example of where a Democratic president should be held to the same standard as Trump is being held right now—not out of any kind of whataboutism, but because both presidents crossed lines. In fact, “both” isn’t right here: Nixon comes out of this looking as bad as (if not worse than) Johnson.

Doctorow convinced me years ago that Audible was terrible, but here, he showed me just how bad they are.

Appreciate Jana’s perspective on this horrible story.

Lots of directions to go with this one, but “based” is the red pill red flag for me. Lee is (unsurprisingly) borrowing the language of the far right.

Compelling example of the need for digital privacy in a post-Row world.

I’ve been thinking this since yesterday. It’s telling how so many “law and order” conservatives who make a big deal about being pro-police reverse on those positions as soon as law enforcement is inconvenient for them.

A worrying look at CPAC. What is happening to the Republican Party?

McCarthy isn’t saying the same thing as these Telegram channels, but he’s making it easier for them to say what they’re saying.

Disappointing but unsurprising.

I’ve long lacked confidence in my own opinions (as a general rule—I can also be an opinionated jerk), so even the simplest disagreement with a position I’ve taken can take some wind out of my sails. When I read the official Latter-day Saint response to the recent AP story, I didn’t agree with it, but it still slowed me down some. “Maybe I should consider things from another point of view,” I thought. I do think it’s important to consider things from all angles, and I don’t think I have the full story, but Michael Austin’s response is the right one gere. When we’re talking about an instance where church inaction allowed for horrific child abuse to continue unchecked for SEVEN YEARS, complaining about unfair treatment in the press is not the right way to respond. Furthermore, if the church is upset by implications that it cares more about its public reputation than about victims of child abuse, responding the way it did only adds fuel to that fire. Again, Austin’s response here is spot on.