Category: reason

Age verification rules expand beyond porn sites. U.S. activist groups have been pushing age verification requirements for porn website visitors as a way to keep kids from viewing adult content. A look at how that’s going in some European countries provides another reason to be wary of this plan.

Officials in Germany and the United Kingdom have made clear that age verification rules aren’t intended to be applied only to the likes of Pornhub; social media companies that allow racy content are also implicated. Rather than institute platformwide age verification, these companies may simply choose to ban explicit sexual content and its creators.

That’s already happening in Germany.

“Twitter has been blocking the profiles of adult content creators in Germany since late 2020, with at least 60 accounts affected to date,” noted Wired this week. “The move comes in response to a series of legal orders by German regulators that have ruled that online pornography should not be visible to children and must be hidden behind age-verification systems.…The exact number of accounts blocked in this way is unknown.”

These accounts are allowed to be seen by Twitter users in other countries. But Germans who try to view their accounts get a message saying the content has been blocked “in response to a legal demand.”

Twitter “blocked porn profiles for German users after we instigated legal proceedings. We were actually the first authority in Europe to do so and we will continue,” Marc Jan Eumann, chairman of Germany’s Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media, told Wired.

The magazine also talked to Paulita Pappel, founder of the European branch of the Free Speech Coalition (an adult industry group against censorship), who said German regulators are “using the protection of minors as an excuse to push forward very conservative policies to bring down porn companies but also smaller sex workers and content creators.”

Twitter already has policies in place to limit the visibility of adult content by underage users. The policies in Germany make it so no one can see it.

The U.K. may wind up following Germany’s lead. After scrapping a porn age-verification plan a few years ago, British leaders are once again pushing for it, this time as part of a larger online safety bill. And officials have confirmed that it will apply to social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit that allow adult content.

“Ministers confirmed this week that social media sites hosting large amounts of pornographic material, such as Twitter and Reddit, would also have to work under the same age-verification rules as adult content sites,” The Guardian reported last Sunday. “It means the sites would have to introduce systems to remove adult material in the UK, or introduce age checks to determine whether users are over 18.”

“While the government argues that this is about porn websites, what is being proposed is a generalised duty to verify internet viewers’ age on websites and services with user-to-user content,” Mariano delli Santi of the Open Rights Group told The Guardian. “This brings into scope not only pornographic websites but also search engines, social medias, blogs and almost the entirety of the internet as we know it.”

“Censors CONSISTENTLY lie about their intentions,” commented Gustavo Turner, news editor for the adult entertainment industry publication XBIZ, on Twitter. While they say “we want to prevent children from being harmed” and write “we want to make ‘pornographic websites’ implement age verification,” what winds up happening in practice is “sexual and LGBTQ+ expression get deplatformed.”

“Eradicating adult content from open platforms has been one of the core objectives of the leading religiously inspired, U.S.-based groups that are at the forefront of the War on Porn,” noted Turner in an article on XBIZ about the U.K.’s age verification proposals.

---

FREE MINDS

Elon Musk accuses the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of trying to chill his speech in the course of enforcing a settlement agreement related to civil securities charges against the Tesla CEO. Musk was charged with making “false and misleading” statements for tweeting that he was “considering taking Tesla private.” As part of a settlement, he and Tesla had to pay $20 million apiece in fines, Musk had to temporarily step down as the company’s chairman, and Tesla had to monitor Musk’s public statements.

Now, the SEC is seeking more information from Tesla to see if it and Musk have been complying with their settlement agreement. It’s too much, says Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro.

“The SEC seems to be targeting Mr. Musk and Tesla for unrelenting investigation largely because Mr. Musk remains an outspoken critic of the government,” Spiro alleged in a Thursday court filing. “The SEC’s outsized efforts seem calculated to chill his exercise of First Amendment rights rather than to enforce generally applicable laws in evenhanded fashion.”

---

FREE MARKETS

The Justice Department is investigating corporate profits. “Elizabeth Warren’s bizarre theories about corporate greed driving inflation have made their way into federal law enforcement,” Reason‘s Eric Boehm reports:

In a press release, the department said its antitrust division would begin to “deter, detect and prosecute those who would exploit supply chain disruptions” to earn what the department calls “illicit profit.” The goal of the initiative, according to the department, is to prevent companies from “overcharging customers under the guise of supply chain disruptions.”

The problem, of course, is that the supply chain disruptions are quite real—and inflation across the economy is the result of both those large-scale issues and government actions, including last year’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill and protectionist policies. To the extent that private companies are raising prices, those things are the likely culprits—and higher prices are the market’s way of allocating scarce goods most efficiently, not evidence of price gouging.

“The DOJ and FBI would rather launch a global investigation of ‘illicit’ supply chain profiteering than acknowledge the obvious and inevitable result when unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus combines with decades of protectionism and regulatory sclerosis,” says Scott Lincicome, director of general economics and trade policy for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Anyone who thought increased and expanded antitrust action was only going to harm big tech companies is starting to get a rude awakening.

---

QUICK HITS

BREAKING:

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announces face masks will *no longer be required* in most settings, including schools, beginning MARCH 21ST.

Vaccine Verification for large events no longer required as of MARCH 1ST.@KING5Seattle pic.twitter.com/dEJ4Wfbu2I

— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) February 17, 2022

• The percentage of American adults identifying as LGBTQ has surged over the past 10 years, according to a new Gallup poll. This jump—from 3.5 percent in 2012 to 7.1 percent last year—is driven by Gen Z (up to 20.8 percent LGBTQ identification in 2021, from 10.5 percent in 2017) and millennials (up to 10.5 percent in 2021, from 5.8 percent in 2012).

• Behind the new Republican strategy on abortion restrictions.

• Nineteen Austin police officers have been indicted on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from their reactions during 2020 protests, the Associated Press reports.

• Oregon’s Supreme Court says former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof doesn’t meet the requirements to run for governor.

•  Fifty-four current and former California highway patrol officers have been charged with theft and fraud.

• Ottawa police have arrested two “Freedom Convoy” organizers.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it's suing the government of Canada over emergency powers. Says the standard has not been met. And these powers can't be normalized.

— Alexander Panetta (@Alex_Panetta) February 17, 2022

• Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva doesn’t want city leaders to talk about “deputy gangs.”

• The FBI is putting together a special team to target cryptocurrency crimes, to be titled the Virtual Asset Exploitation Team.

The post European Leaders Find Backdoor Way To Ban Porn on Social Media appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest https://ift.tt/DV17A8x
via IFTTT

Here are excerpts from my ope-ed in today’s Washington Post on the controversy over IRS use of face recognition:

The plan sent Congress into a tizzy. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) complained that “many facial recognition technologies are biased in ways that negatively impact vulnerable groups, including people of color, women, and seniors.” Fifteen Republican senators objected that the face recognition system threatened to make taxpayers “pay the toll of giving up their most personal information, biometric data.”

Cowed by the accusations of bias and privacy, the IRS announced that it will “transition away” from face recognition. But both accusations are false, and the price that you and I will pay for this panicky retreat is enormous.

…

Wyden wants the IRS to switch to “verification by humans.” Talk about lose-lose. At this point, the technology is much better than humans: Even human “super-recognizers” can’t beat the algorithms. Their best accuracy rates are around 95 percent, well behind today’s machines, and ordinary mortals, with an error rate of about 81 percent, aren’t even close. They will almost certainly show more bias, too; humans are notorious for having trouble recognizing people outside their ethnic group.

Meanwhile, taxpayers would get worse service that costs more. If you’ve flown home from overseas in the past few years, you’ve probably skipped the customs line served by a human officer and headed straight for a kiosk that uses face recognition to match you to your passport. And I’ll wager money you never want to go back to the old system.

But when it comes to protecting yourself from identity theft, that’s exactly what the bipartisan critics in Congress want the IRS to do to you. Instead of a quick, automated process, you will wait on the phone to be verified by a human being. That human being will be working for the same understaffed IRS that has not even gotten around to opening and logging all the returns it received in the mail nearly two years ago.

But that’s what’s in store for all of us if the bipartisan group of congressional critics gets its way. If it’s any consolation, we probably won’t be on hold for the whole two years.

But it sure will feel that way.

The post Why you should want the IRS to use facial recognition technology appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest https://ift.tt/MQCLN4e
via IFTTT

From Wednesday’s decision in Vickery v. City of Pensacola, by Judge Thomas Winokur, joined by Judge B.L. Thomas (over a dissent by Judge Scott Makar):

Larry and Ellen Vickery appeal from an order denying dissolution of a temporary injunction prohibiting them from removing a tree from their property. Because the injunction was improper, we reverse.

The Vickerys own a residential lot in the North Hill Preservation District of Pensacola, on which a live oak tree is situated in the rear corner. Hoping to build a house and wanting to avoid potential damage from the tree, the Vickerys applied to the Parks and Recreation Department for a permit to remove the tree. The permit was denied shortly before section 163.045(1), Florida Statutes, came into effect on July 1, 2019. This statute authorizes residential property owners to remove trees from their property without interference from local government if the owners obtain documentation, from an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA)-certified arborist or Florida-licensed landscape architect, indicating that the trees present a danger to persons or property.

The Vickerys’ builder emailed the City of Pensacola (the City) to inform it that the Vickerys planned to remove the tree. The builder attached a letter from an ISA-certified arborist indicating that the main trunk of the tree had “severe decay” resulting from the prior removal of one of the tree’s main stems, as well as other evidence of the tree “rotting on the inside.” As a result, the letter contained the arborist’s opinion that the “location of the tree puts homes and the occupants at risk of severe damage and safety” when the tree fails.

The City filed an action for declaratory judgment seeking a determination that section 163.045(1), Florida Statutes, did not prohibit the City from enforcing the local code provisions requiring the Vickerys to obtain a permit to remove the tree. It argued that the statute’s use of the words “documentation” and “danger” is ambiguous, that the Vickerys’ documentation was insufficient, and that the Legislature must have intended to require property owners to obtain an objective evaluation based on standards used by ISA-certified arborists. The City also requested a temporary injunction prohibiting the Vickerys from removing the tree.

The trial court granted the temporary injunction, which the Vickerys moved to dissolve. In a hearing on this motion, the City called experts to contest the Vickerys’ arborist’s finding of danger. Additionally, a landscape architect testified that those in his profession are not bound by written guidelines, that they use their own discretion to determine how to assess the danger of a tree, and that he would not typically prepare a written report of the danger.

After the hearing, the court denied the Vickerys’ motion. In its order, it discussed the City’s likelihood of success on the merits of the declaratory action. In addition to accepting the City’s contention that the tree was not enough of a danger to remove, the court interpreted section 163.045(1). It stated that “the Legislature left express clues in the statutory language to narrow the scope of ‘danger’ and ‘documentation’ ” and concluded that “[t]he Legislature must be presumed to know the meaning of certified as an arborist or licensed as a landscape architect. By selecting only those two professions, the Legislature has implicitly adopted the professional standards applicable to the two respective industries.” It further concluded that “the only reasonable interpretation … is one where: (1) an arborist or landscape architect must determine that a tree is a danger; and (2) for the determination and documentation to be rendered utilizing only the methodologies and official documents applicable to the two respective industries.” The court determined that the statute applies only when a tree is dangerous, as substantiated by documentation, and also determined that section 163.045(1) does not preempt the City “from challenging, through submission of its own expert opinions, the conclusions reached by an arborist who generated questionable documentation that [the tree] is dangerous.”

The Vickerys brought this appeal. They argue that the trial court ignored the plain meaning of section 163.045(1). The City counters that the statute is ambiguous and the trial court correctly interpreted it, including that the statute should be read to require arborists and landscape architects to follow industry standards and methods. It also argues that the trial court’s interpretation does not impede the Legislature’s purpose, which the City contends is to relieve residents of a bureaucratic process when a tree on their land is dangerous. Additionally, the City maintains that enforcing the local code is permissible because section 163.045(1) does not preempt all municipal protection of trees, that the Vickerys should have appealed the original denial of their permit application, and that the statute should not apply to the Vickerys at all because they do not yet reside on the property containing the tree. Finally, the City opposes a plain-language interpretation on the ground that it would permit property owners to determine for themselves whether a tree is dangerous, as they could simply pay for the opinion they want.

The Vickerys win; for more, you can read all 11,000 words of the opinion. You can also read “Woodman, Spare That Tree!,” or, for that matter, this ditty from my computer days programming in LISP (back at Inference Inc. in 1986):

Reclaimer, spare that tree!
Take not a single bit!
It used to point to me,
Now I’m protecting it.
It was the reader’s CONS
That made it, paired by dot;
Now, GC, for the nonce,
Thou shalt reclaim it not.

(To be precise, I think I saw it in a UNIX cookie file even earlier, but it took learning LISP to grasp it.)

The post "Woodman, Spare That Tree!," Says Pensacola appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest https://ift.tt/kcUChSM
via IFTTT

More than a decade ago, legendary movie critic Roger Ebert caused a minor uproar by arguing that “video games can never be art.” Ebert, of course, did not actually mean never as in never, ever, ever, and he allowed that his opinion might change if the form evolved. But he insisted that the games that had already been made failed as art, in part because none would survive the test of time.

Video game players do not, on the whole, come across as a very chill bunch, especially when talking about games online. There are exceptions, of course, but the most vocal are obsessive, particular, demanding, hyper-focused, and deeply defensive about their favorite games. So rather predictably, Ebert’s column started an extremely online argument among gamers sticking up for their hobby, and younger culture critics eager to make the case for games as culturally important. Of course games are art, they said, and then pointed to a game or handful of games to prove it. I myself participated in this discourse on multiple occasions, and at this point I consider the matter largely settled. Video games are obviously art. (Have you played Disco Elysium?) The matter is settled.

And honestly, even if they aren’t, it doesn’t really matter, because digital games are so embedded in the cultural firmament. Almost everyone plays digital games of some sort. Even if you are not logging in for a 19-hour push through the latest Destiny raid, and have no idea what that even means, you’re probably wasting a few minutes at a time with Wordle or some other app-based trifle. Social media now incorporates gamelike elements, encouraging users to rack up likes and shares. Cops in Los Angeles ignore obvious robberies to catch Snorlaxes in Pokemon Go. Video games are the mortar between moments. They are how we occupy, and waste, our time.

As games became a default mode of cultural consumption for so many, they have infiltrated other mediums as well, most obviously the form that Ebert spent his career writing about, the movies. Hollywood loves adaptable properties, especially those that already have some cinematic elements, like comic books and video games.

And thus the inevitable march from the console to the big screen has raised a slightly different question from the one that Ebert asked: Are video game movies art? And there I think the answer has to be a pretty firm no.

The latest bit of evidence comes in the form of Uncharted, a big-budget adaptation of the popular PlayStation game series. In theory, the Uncharted games should translate easily to the big screen: They are story-heavy and smartly written, with strong characters and loads of can-you-believe-it blockbuster action. If you are not much of a gamer and you sit down to play an Uncharted game for the first time, you might be surprised by how cinematic these games are. Yes, there is plenty of actual gameplay, built largely around a combination of stealth, shooting, and complex climbing. But even the gameplay tends to come across as cinematic, with increasingly tense buildups inevitably leading to grand, delightfully orchestrated Spielbergian setpieces. It should be easy to transform this franchise into a fun movie.

Apparently, it’s not. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, who most recently made the turgid yet annoyingly successful Tom Hardy comic book movie Venom, Uncharted is dull, witless, and entirely tension-free. The big setpieces are CGI slogs that somehow come across as more video game–like than the games themselves, but without any of the cleverness or exuberance.

The treasure-seeking, puzzle-solving elements that make up the movie’s middle chunk might have worked in a game scenario where you’re trying to solve the environmental challenges yourself, but in the movie it just looks like a bunch of people running around slotting rare treasures into crevices on what are supposed to look like ancient ruins but are obviously just soundstage sets.

The dialogue between the two big stars, Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, sounds like a screenwriter filled page after page with “insert quippy banter here” and never got around to writing anything. It’s an entirely lifeless and joyless product, devoid of any of the pulpy pleasures of either classic big-screen adventures or even the games themselves.

Instead, it plays like a rote checklist of elements that fans of the games might like to see on screen. It does not try to please fans of the games so much as placate them. Indeed, in an interview with gaming news site IGN, Fleischer seemed to hint at this. Asked about whether his experience with Venom, a comic book movie about a fan-favorite Spider-Man villain, he responded by noting that both properties “feature a very loyal and passionate fan base for whom the source material is precious and they’re very protective of.” It’s not surprising that at times Uncharted seems almost afraid of its fanbase, too scared to try to do anything interesting, lest the gamers revolt. It’s made entirely in a defensive crouch.

It’s not that it’s impossible to adapt video games to a more conventional scripted format: Netflix’s Castlevania and Arcane adaptations are both excellent, although both are series rather than standalone features. Neither is unfaithful to the source material, but in both cases, the games serve as inspirations for well-told stories that are somewhat independent of the games. They build on the games rather than simply repeating familiar elements. 

In contrast, Uncharted comes across as desperate to avoid the wrath of gaming’s most obsessive, outspoken fans—the same cohort who responded so defensively to Ebert. But that deference, and the creative timidity it produces, has consistently led to game-based movies that try to honor their games but end up failing them. Warcraft, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Doom, and, yes, Uncharted are all properties ripe for adaptation and translation. Instead, the movie versions are all trash. That’s a shame. It’s a strange thing to say, but video games deserve better.

The post The Awful <i>Uncharted</i> Raises the Question: Are Video Game Movies Art? appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest https://ift.tt/evp1J2B
via IFTTT

In IPSOS MMA, Inc. v. Doe (decided Jan. 25 but just posted on Westlaw), the plaintiff, a marketing analytics company, sued an ex-employee for alleged trade secret infringement; the case settled within three months of filing, and Judge Paul Engelmayer (S.D.N.Y.) allowed it to be litigated pseudonymously:

On November 18, 2021, at a preliminary stage of the case, the Court permitted the defendant to proceed pseudonymously…. [T]he Court finds that pseudonymous identification of the defendant remains warranted, with the case having settled promptly, including for the following reasons.

First, although claims of professional wrongdoing were made against Doe, they were not established, and because the case settled, prior to formal discovery, will not be.

Second, as the Court earlier noted, Doe is not a public figure, and because there will be no motions practice or other litigation, the public interest is not independently served by the disclosure of his identity. Cf. Delta Airlines, 310 F.R.D. at 225 (where lawsuit was proceeding to trial, “Delta could suffer concrete prejudice in several respects were Doe permitted to proceed pseudonymously”); Del Rio, 241 F.R.D. at 159 (noting that party’s anonymity could “deprive a litigant and the court of the chance that a yet unknown witness would … know to step forward with valuable information about the events or the credibility of witnesses”).

Third, the defendant did not initiate this matter or seek to use the litigation process for personal advantage.

Fourth, Ipsos continues not to oppose this motion on any grounds, including that it may be prejudiced by Doe’s pseudonymity.

And fifth, thus far, Doe’s identity has successfully been kept confidential. Accordingly, Doe may continue to proceed based on a pseudonym, and the appropriate redactions of his identifying information will remain in place. This case remains closed.

It seems to me that this analysis would justify allowing pretty much all defendants who are accused of serious misconduct, whether intentional or negligent—malpractice, sexual assault, employment discrimination, many kinds of breach of contract—to litigate pseudonymously, at least until there is some “motions practice or other litigation.” That is not the way most courts operate, it seems to me (see, e.g., Appendix 7 of my The Law of Pseudonymous Litigation draft, and cf. this case). Still, one thing I learned in writing that article is that the legal standards for pseudonymity are phrased quite vaguely, and that much depends on the views of the particular judge you draw.

By the way, you might wonder how a defendant got to be pseudonymous in the first place, given that the plaintiff files the Complaint and usually names the defendant. As best I can tell, what happened is that the plaintiff filed the Complaint under seal, because it wanted to get an ex parte TRO without alerting the defendant that such an order was coming. The judge later ordered the Complaint unsealed (since permanent sealing of such documents is much frowned on), but with the defendant’s name redacted out.

The post Pseudonymity for Defendant Accused of "Professional Wrongdoing," If Case Is Promptly Settled appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest https://ift.tt/pBLyC0Q
via IFTTT