Friday, April 19, 2024

How To Solve The Big Tech Problem Without Violating Anyone's Rights (Updated Re-Post)

"Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco" is often bandied about these days.  And while that has a kernel of truth to it (a kernel the size of a cornfield, in fact), it is also used by authoritarian zealots with a very illiberal (and ageist) agenda.  Mandatory age verification, censorship, repealing Section 230, and other related illiberal restrictions would open up the door to many unintended consequences to privacy, cybersecurity, and civil rights and liberties in general.  Even those adults who don't support youth rights will eventually experience these consequences sooner or later.  Kafka, meet trap.  Pandora, meet box.  Albatross, meet neck.  And of course, baby, meet bathwater. 

And none of these things will actually solve the collective action problem of Big Tech and the "Social Dilemma".  But here are some things that will, in descending order of priority and effectiveness:

  1. First and foremost, take a "Privacy First" approach as recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Pass comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that, at a minimum, would ban surveillance advertising, and ban data brokers too.
  2. Audit the algorithms and internal research of the Big Tech giants, and make the results publicly available for all to see.  Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant. 
  3. Require the strictest and safest privacy settings to be the default settings for all users of all ages, which can then be adjusted more liberally by the users themselves.  For example, "friends only" sharing and "no DMs enabled from people whom one does not follow" by default.  And allow the option to turn off all DMs completely as well.
  4. Require or incentivize the use of various "architectural" safety features on all social media, such as various nudges, #OneClickSafer ("stop at two hops") to reduce the pitfalls of frictionless sharing, and increase the use of CAPTCHAs to root out the pervasive toxic bots.
  5. If after doing that, We the People feel that we must still get stricter in terms of age, then don't make things any stricter than current California standards (i.e. CCPA and CAADCA).  That is, a "Kids Code" would be fine as long as it is properly written and doesn't result in censorship or mandatory age verification. 

The first two items on the list in particular would of course be vehemently opposed by Big Tech.  That's because their whole business model depends on creepy surveillance advertising and creepy algorithms, and thus incentivizing addiction for profit.  They would thus have to switch to the (gasp!) DuckDuckGo model if these items were done.  (Plays world's smallest violin) That would of course be tantamount to throwing the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, in J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

For another, related collective action problem, what about the emerging idea of phone-free schools?  Fine, but to be fair, how about phone-free workplaces for all ages as well?  In both cases, it should ONLY apply while "on the clock", which for school would be best defined as being from the opening bell to the final bell of the day, as well as during any after-school detention time.  And of course, in both cases, there would have to be medical exemptions for students and employees who need such devices for real-time medical monitoring (glucose for diabetes, for example).  Surely productivity would increase so much as a result that we could easily shorten the standard workweek to 30-32 hours per week (8 hours for 4 days, or 6 hours for 5 days) with no loss in profits?  But that would make too much sense.

Other good ideas we would endorse are a voluntary smartphone buyback program (similar to gun buybacks), and perhaps even paying people to voluntarily delete or deactivate their social media accounts for a time. That would accomplish far more than any realistic mandatory measures would.

Another possible idea is simply to slow down by design the pace of these social media platforms.  Much like #OneClickSafer mentioned above, adding a little bit of friction to an otherwise frictionless system can help tame the very real dark side of that system.  I mean, would you willingly drive on a frictionless surface (such as ice)?  Of course you wouldn't.

Note that internet connection speeds are more than ten times faster (!) today on average than in 2010.  That leaves a LOT of room for adding back friction!

And finally, the idea of banning certain questionable design features (infinite scroll, autoplay, etc.) may be controversial in terms of whether such features are protected by the First Amendment, but we believe that those features per se are not automatically protected, unless the ban is deliberately  abused to censor specific content.  If such bans are truly content-neutal, we are fine with that. 

We must remember that, at the end of the day, Big Tech is NOT our friend.  But neither are the illiberal control freak zealots.  These measures that we endorse will actually make both sides quite angry indeed.  But truly that's a feature, not a bug.

Big Tech can go EFF off!

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Why The WHO Pandemic Treaty Needs Serious Revision Before It Can Be Signed

(Updated from the 2023 version)

The current draft of the WHO pandemic treaty is very close to being finalized now.  And while the "fact checkers" vociferously deny that the treaty will sign over America's hard-won national sovereignty to the WHO in the event of a future global health emergency, there is still good reason for all nations, and especially the USA, to refuse to sign, ratify, OR accede to it until serious revisions are made.  

First, the constitutionally questionable practice of it possibly even going into effect without the Senate's "advice and consent" (as is typically required to ratify international treaties), let alone the utterly specious notion that treaties can even supersede the Constitution itself, is enough to give anyone a severe case of the heebie-jeebies, or at least any serious student of history that gives a crap about the Constitution.  That alone is bad enough. 

But the most important problem of all, is what the treaty, by omission, does NOT require of its signatories.  The following is what we believe any such treaty absolutely MUST require explicitly, in light of the three year "free" trial of authoritarianism (and often totalitarianism) from 2020-2023:

To be prohibited in any circumstances:

  • All lockdowns, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited. 
  • All mask mandates outside of a healthcare setting must be strictly prohibited.
  • All forced business closures must be strictly prohibited unless fully compensated by, and entirely at the expense of, whatever government imposed such closures.
  • All forced school closures lasting more than ten (10) consecutive school days must be strictly prohibited. 
  • All vaccine mandates, passports or coercion, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited for any vaccine that 1) has been on the market for less than ten (10) years and/or 2) has not been conclusively proven to be truly safe and effective.
  • Launching or marketing any sort of vaccine, or anything that identifies as such, without the proper safety and effectiveness testing and/or without following GMP, shall be strictly prohibited. 
  • Any attempt to censor alternative viewpoints shall be strictly prohibited. 
  • Any attempt to officially deny or censor a known effective treatment or prophylaxis shall be strictly prohibited. 
  • Any attempt to abolish cash shall be strictly prohibited. 
  • Social credit scoring shall be strictly prohibited. 
  • Microchipping by force or coercion of any kind shall be strictly prohibited. 
To be strongly discouraged overall:
  • Blanket mask mandates in healthcare settings shall be strongly discouraged. 
  • School closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
  • Business closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged. 
  • Vaccine mandates, passports, or coercion of any kind shall be strongly discouraged regardless of the vaccine or how supposedly safe it is.
  • Mandatory quarantine of exposed individuals without symptoms shall be strongly discouraged for any disease for which the body of research evidence does not support (i.e. influenza and coronaviruses).
  • Gathering restrictions or any other restrictions on freedom of association shall be strongly discouraged. 
  • Travel bans and restrictions shall be strongly discouraged. 
  • Mass testing with PCR shall be strongly discouraged in most circumstances. 
  • Central bank digital currency (CBDC) shall be strongly discouraged (and shall be prohibited if it replaces cash entirely).
  • Digital ID shall be strongly discouraged. 
To be encouraged:
  • Informed consent
  • Bodily autonomy 
  • Human rights
  • Civil rights and liberties 
  • Free speech
  • Public health (as it was originally founded)
  • Early treatment and prophylaxis 
  • Nutrition 
  • Holistic view of health
  • National sovereignty 

Definitions:

  • "Lockdown" shall be defined as any mandatory "stay home", "shelter in place", or equivalent order lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, for all or part of the population, for any reason.  Any nighttime curfew order lasting more than three (3) consecutive nights would also meet this definition as well.  These must be off the table.
  • "Mask mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce anyone to cover all or any part of one's face for the purposes of disease control, or any penalties for not complying for same.
  • "Vaccine mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce any person to receive anything that identifies as a vaccine.
  • "Vaccine passport" shall be defined as any identifier bestowed on a person that gives certain privileges conditional on having received anything that identifies as a vaccine.
  • All other definitions have their usual meaning, and apply in theory or practice.
That should be the FLOOR for any such treaty, NOT the ceiling, as even that may be too much leeway. Then, and ONLY then, should the USA agree to any sort of WHO pandemic treaty, ever.

If there was ever a hill to die on, this is it.  Because once that Rubicon is crossed, there is NO going back.

(Mic drop)