This week, both our winners on the insightful side come from our post about a facts-free op-ed defending the bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230. In first place, it’s Stephen T. Stone reiterating a rule that holds true:

Once more, with feeling:

No one can oppose Section 230 without lying about it.

In second place, it’s Strawb with a reply to the claim that Section 230 allows “blatant viewpoint discrimination”:

No, that’s the First Amendment. But keep telling Mike how he “doesn’t understand the law”.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Dan B about Ajit Pai supporting the TikTok ban:

What makes this weird, to me, is that this isn’t even good politics for him.

Trump is (currently) against the ban, as are a plurality of independent voters. On top of that, there are solid, non-crazy legal arguments that the ban is unconstitutional. So this would have been an opportunity for Pai to simultaneously suck up to Trump, help the Republicans’ chances in 2024, and… do the right thing.

Next, it’s Drew Wilson with a comment about the potential (or not-so-potential) sale of TikTok:

I’m with Mike on this. The likelihood TikTok getting sold is very low at this point. TikTok made it very clear that they aren’t selling. They have their litigation effort (along with creator litigation next to them) fully ahead of them at this point. It makes WAY more sense that both TikTok and the creators that use the platform to focus on the lawsuits they filed. If it’s looking unlikely that the lawsuit is going to win and they change their mind on selling afterwards, then we’ll talk, but that’s a LONG way down the road and, what’s more, that’s a very big “if”.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment from last week’s winners post, responding to the winning insightful comment from that week, which was itself a reply to a comment throwing around some legal nonsense and included the line “the irony is that your hallucinated ‘facts’ are more offensive than ChatGPT’s”:

Hey, good news. Humans are still better at hallucinating than AI. Who’da thunk it.

In second place, it’s Boba Fatt with a comment about the bogus takedowns of “Fuck the LAPD” shirts:

I predict a new T-shirt design

now with “and the LAPDF, too”

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from i havent had coffee yet confessing a misreading of the headline on our post about “the streaming sector”:

I first read the title as “Screaming Sector Continues Its…” and assumed it was about maga/conservatives.

Finally, it’s an anonymous comment about the latest nonsense from the mayor of New York City:

Someone should just switch Eric Adams with Eric André one night just to see what happens.

That’s all for this week, folks!

Five Years Ago

This week in 2019, the government hit whistleblower David Hale with espionage charges. All four major wireless carriers were hit with lawsuits over sharing location data, while employees of AT&T and Verizon were caught up in a DOJ bust over SIM hijacking. Canada’s Prime Minister was threatening to fine social media companies over fake news, while a Canadian committee published a ludicrous fantasy pretending to be a copyright reform analysis. And, in perhaps the most notable news for us this week, we announced the conclusion of our legal dispute with Shiva Ayyadurai.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2014, AT&T was warning of a parade of horribles that would supposedly happen if the FCC reclassified broadband, the cable industry was lying about having invested in broadband and supported net neutrality (since the industry’s own numbers showed a general decline in investment over the years), and Tom Wheeler was revising his net neutrality plans before opening the floor to comments. Then, an initial vote on new open internet rules was reported in drastically different ways in different publications. We also wrote about why making APIs copyrightable is bad news for innovation, while Automattic announced that it wouldn’t claim copyright over its APIs.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2009, there was a tidal wave of lawsuits over pirated clip-art, while we continued writing about how people make a lot of bad assumptions about copyright and it’s almost impossible to live your life without infringing. The BSA released more bogus piracy numbers, the CEO of Sony Pictures was complaining about the internet, and Francea approved a three-strikes law. Meanwhile, Craigslist gave in to constant attacks by Attorneys General and started locking down its “erotic services” category, which (amusingly) actually annoyed some AGs like Andrew Cuomo and Henry McMaster, because Craigslist just did it without giving them the photo op and fawning press coverage they hoped for.

It’s a funny thing what game publishers sometimes try to do when it comes to releasing games early to internet streamers as a way to boost interest in their games. I’ve heard stories of all kinds of crazy stipulations that streamers have to sign off on contractually in order to get access to the game. They can only show certain parts of the game, or they can only play so far into it, or they have guardrails put up around what they can and cannot say about the game they are showing off to the public. What tends to get lost in all of this is that these streamers are essentially an advertising channel to generate more hype about these future games, yet they’re treated like some kind of a threat.

And where this gets really pernicious is when publishers want to both get messaging about their games out in the form of independent streaming personalities, but also want to control what that message will be. Perhaps one of the most extreme forms that type of thing can take showed up with NetEase, who is developing the upcoming Marvel Rivals game, attempted to contractually prohibit these streamers from saying anything negative about the games.

The controversial early access contract gained widespread attention over the weekend when streamer Brandon Larned shared a portion on social media. In the “non-disparagement” clause shared by Larned, creators who are provided with an early download code are asked not to “make any public statements or engage in discussions that are detrimental to the reputation of the game.” In addition to the “subjective negative review” example above, the clause also specifically prohibits “making disparaging or satirical comments about any game-related material” and “engaging in malicious comparisons with competitors or belittling the gameplay or differences of Marvel Rivals.”

It should be obvious to anyone why this is a problem and why there’s no way this wasn’t going to become public. The contract, as written, essentially asked these streaming personalities, who have only their reputations with their fans to go on, to not just let the company tread on their own editorial credibility, but to actually mandate the full torpedoing of that credibility. Anyone who agreed to this, or other contracts like it, are almost purely shills.

After this all went public, NetEase unsurprisingly apologized and promised to make changes on their end.

In a follow-up posted to social media this morning, NetEase went on to “apologize for any unpleasant experiences or doubts caused by the miscommunication of these terms… We actively encourage Creators to share their honest thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms as they play. All feedback, positive and negative, ultimately helps us craft the best experience for ourselves and the players.” NetEase says it is making “adjustments” to the contract “to be less restrictive and more Creator-friendly.”

There are always going to be some restrictions in these arrangements. After all, these streamers are getting early access to a game and publishers will certainly want to exert some control over what is messaged and shown and what isn’t. But any attempt to tread upon the editorial integrity of those that are being used as the mouthpieces of hype for these games ought to be a non-starter.

Otherwise, the destruction of trust in those streamers in the public would render them useless, anyhow.

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

• Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram (European Commission)
• Meta, TikTok, other platforms told to expect EU guidelines soon on child protection, age verification (MLex)
• Got a text that you think is a scam? S’pore’s new centre to fight online harms can help verify it (Straits Times)
• Bipartisan Bill To Repeal Section 230 Defended In Facts-Optional Op-Ed (Techdirt)
• Indian journalists turned to YouTube to dodge Modi’s censorship. Some of their channels are now being blocked (Reuters Institute for Journalism)
• She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (The Guardian)
• Commission services sign administrative arrangement with Ofcom to support the enforcement of social media regulations (Pub Affairs Bruxelles)
• Singapore’s proposed online safety laws look like more censorship in disguise (Rest of World)

This episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund.

Every cop with a dog swears it can detect all sorts of contraband. Literally swears. In court. On the stand.

But are drug dogs miraculous wonders of law enforcement due to their training? Or is it due to the domesticated dog’s innate desire to please, especially when it knows it will be rewarded for doing the thing? Or is it simply responding to cues delivered by its handler, some of which may be subconscious?

Well, it’s probably a combination of all these things. Training does get dogs to respond to certain scents. But the training also turns them into an extension of their handler. And then the dog wants what the cop wants: a reason to perform a warrantless search. Both handler and dog are rewarded in their own way. The dog gets a treat. And the cop gets to perform a trick that allows the officer to bypass the Fourth Amendment. (There’s a reason cops hate actually scientific testing of officers and drug dogs, because once the pair is separated, tons of false positives and negatives tend to be generated.)

For a long time, courts were mostly receptive to the assertions made by officers handling drug dogs. If they said in court that the dog “alerted,” the court generally couldn’t find a good reason to consider this testimony flawed.

But now there are cameras in cop cars and cameras on cops’ chests and cameras in the phones pretty much every driver and passenger possesses. Consequently, these assertions about “alerting” are receiving more scrutiny, as are the dogs themselves, who have shown their ability to reliably detect contraband isn’t all that different than allowing cops to flip a coin to determine whether or not they can pursue a warrantless search.

This case, brought to us by FourthAmendment.com, has a court calling bullshit on a supposed “alert.” A pretextual traffic stop that resulted in the discovery of an illegally possessed weapon relied on a search of a car — a search supposedly prompted by the cop dog on the scene.

The defendant, David Edmonds, was hit with a felony in possession charge following this search. He moved to suppress the evidence, claiming the search of his car wasn’t supported by probable cause or reasonable suspicion, the latter of which is the minimum that officers need to search a vehicle on public roads.

On the way to this warrantless search, the dashcam video submitted as evidence by the government appears to show a bunch of cops breaking traffic laws en route to violating the Fourth Amendment. From the decision [PDF]:

It was daylight. A white sedan traveling on Fifth Street crossed Broadway in front of Trooper Gabriel, proceeding from the trooper’s right to his left. The first unobstructed view of the sedan appears about six seconds into the video. The sedan’s windows are tinted. On the dashcam footage, nothing is visible inside the car. The car is in view for about four seconds before it travels out of the camera’s range.

A pickup truck followed behind the sedan on Fifth Street also traveling in front of Trooper Gabriel. Trooper Gabriel testified at the hearing that the truck was driven by a law enforcement officer. After the truck passed, Trooper Gabriel ran the red light on Broadway and turned left on Fifth Street following the path of the truck and the sedan, cutting off another car going through the intersection. Trooper Gabriel testified on cross-examination that the car he cut off was driven by another law enforcement officer who he had warned by radio.

The area of Fifth Street is a residential area. Trooper Gabriel picked up speed on Fifth Street. He passed a sign stating that the speed limit is 25. He appeared to be traveling well above that. He testified at the hearing that he was traveling about 40-45 miles per hour.

At this point, there were at least three state troopers, driving three different vehicles in pursuit of a white sedan that had not been observed breaking any traffic laws. Trooper Gabriel, however, had not only run a red light, but was driving 20 mph over the posted speed limit.

If this was a pursuit, there was no indication of that. There is nothing on the record that indicates sirens or lights had been activated, which meant all the officers involved were endangering other drivers for the sole purpose of catching up to a car whose driver hadn’t actually broken any laws himself.

The mayhem continued:

The pickup truck traveling behind the sedan pulled over to the side of the road, and Trooper Gabriel passed it. Trooper Gabriel testified on cross examination that the truck was also a law enforcement officer who he had radioed ahead to pull over. At that point, nothing was between the sedan and Trooper Gabriel, who was still speeding down the residential road. As Trooper Gabriel’s vehicle approached closer, the sedan veered slightly to the right toward the curb and stopped on Fifth Street at an intersection with another street. Trooper Gabriel stopped behind the sedan.

Somehow, every car on the road other than the one this trooper was pursuing was another cop. What a coincidence! I’m surprised the court didn’t demand testimony from all the other alleged “officers” Trooper Gabriel endangered while focused on this white sedan.

Trooper Gabriel followed up his lawbreaking and endangerment of other drivers (some who might have been cops!) by doing whatever the fuck this is:

Trooper Gabriel yelled to the sedan driver to turn the car off. The driver, who was defendant Edmonds, stuck his head slightly out of the driver’s side window, looked back at Trooper Gabriel and apparently asked why he was being asked to turn the car off. Trooper Gabriel stated, “because you just whipped over like crazy.” He again instructed Edmonds to turn the car off. Edmonds apparently again asked why, and Trooper Gabriel responded, “Because I said so.”

About 13 seconds after Trooper Gabriel first instructed Edmonds to turn the car off, Edmonds’ brake lights went off. Trooper Gabriel instructed Edmonds multiple times to get out of the car. About eight seconds after Trooper Gabriel first instructed him to, Edmonds got out of the car. Trooper Gabriel instructed Edmonds to walk toward him. Edmonds complied. Another trooper appears on camera at this point walking toward Edmonds’ car.

Those quoted paragraphs immediately follow the previous quoted paragraphs. All of this was captured by the trooper’s dashcam. The court: “the sedan veered slightly to the right.” Trooper Gabriel: “You whipped like crazy.” Hmm.

Already off to a bad start, but apparently surrounded by other troopers with nothing better to do but violate traffic laws en route to performing a traffic stop, Trooper Gabriel then proceeded to claim he “caught” Edmonds “with no seat belt” and again reiterated his claim (one not supported by his dashcam footage) that Edmonds has “freakin’ just like dipped over.” Let’s go back to the court’s earlier depiction of the dashcam recording to see what it has to say about Trooper Gabriel’s assertion that he saw the man driving without a seat belt.

The first unobstructed view of the sedan appears about six seconds into the video. The sedan’s windows are tinted. On the dashcam footage, nothing is visible inside the car.

Folks, this man is a liar. He lied about seeing the seat belt (or lack thereof) and he lied about the whipping/dipping he claimed to have witnessed.

Having apparently traveled as far he could on this particular line of bullshit, the trooper began insinuating that the thing HE DEFINITELY HAD NOT WITNESSED were indicative of a nervous driver seeking to avoid a traffic stop and/or cover up their possession of contraband.

Since the trooper really had nothing to work with here, he decided to bring in a dog to give him the probable cause he couldn’t possibly hope to obtain on his own. Trooper Gabriel took the dog from his vehicle and walked it around Edmond’s car.

This is what happened:

The dog, whose name is Dragon, appears to follow Trooper Gabriel’s hand. When Trooper Gabriel places his hand in the open driver’s side window, the dog jumps onto the driver’s side door and sticks his head in the window.

Trooper Gabriel then led Dragon all the way around the vehicle until the trooper and the dog returned to the driver’s side door again. At the driver’s side door, Trooper Gabriel told Dragon, “I’m not going to give you your ball . . . You’re going to have to . . . .” Trooper Gabriel then walked back to the state police vehicle, with Dragon leading the way. Trooper Gabriel returned to Edmonds and explained that Dragon does “a passive alert on a vehicle.” Trooper Gabriel stated, “That means he will either sit, or stare, or freeze if he has an indication that there is an odor of narcotics in the vehicle.” Trooper Gabriel stated that Dragon is “right on your driver’s side door handle.”

Edmonds stated, “I didn’t see him do nothing. . . what do they do?” Trooper Gabriel responded, “I just told you.”

Oh, so it’s a new type of alert: the one where the dog doesn’t do much, even when encouraged to do something, anything by its handler. My dog smelled drugs, said the lying state trooper.

Here’s what actually happened:

The officers then searched Edmonds’ car. They found no narcotics…

But they found a gun! And Edmonds was not allowed to have one. The trooper lucked into this discovery by lying about what he had observed prior to the stop, and what the dog had actually done when it performed its sniff.

As for all the whipping and dipping, this is what the court observed thanks to the dashcam footage supplied by the government:

As to his driving, Edmonds’ pulling off to the side of the road seemed a rational response for a driver when a marked law enforcement vehicle is approaching the driver’s vehicle from the rear at a high rate of speed in a residential area, and the vehicle behind the driver has already pulled to the side of the road so that the law enforcement officer could pass him. And, on the dashcam footage, Edmonds appeared to pull over to the side of the road in a reasonable manner…

The government’s response to the suppression motion claimed Trooper Gabriel was “concerned” about Edmonds’ “driving pattern.” Then it claimed the stop was supported by Gabriel’s claim he witnessed Edmonds driving without a seat belt.

Fine, says the court. Have it your way. If the driving wasn’t unlawful, let’s make this all about a seat belt violation. The court goes on to criticize everything about the government’s arguments, as well as everything about the trooper’s actions. And that includes the dog that supposedly gave him permission for a warrantless search of the car.

It first notes that no real traffic stop was performed. Edmonds was not pulled over. Trooper Gabriel never activated his lights or siren. Instead, he just started yelling at Edmonds after he had voluntarily stopped and then began the string of rights violations by ordering him to turn off his car and exit his vehicle.

Even then, it was all bullshit. The court notes that Trooper Gabriel maintained the seal belt violation pretense until redirect under cross examination by Edmonds’ lawyer. At that point, he admitted he had seen the car pass through a “high narcotics” area he was surveilling. Everything was pretext and the trooper obviously hoped to net a drug bust.

Which would explain why he brought out the dog and pretended it had alerted to the scent of narcotics. The court has some things to say about the performance of “Dragon” and the even less-believable performance of Trooper Gabriel.

Going back to what Trooper Gabriel told Edmonds about the supposed alert before he began his constitutional search:

Trooper Gabriel returned to Edmonds and explained that Dragon does “a passive alert on a vehicle.” Trooper Gabriel stated, “That means he will either sit, or stare, or freeze if he has an indication that there is an odor of narcotics in the vehicle.”

The trooper either lied to Edmonds or lied to the court. Actually, it’s not an “either” situation. He lied to both parties. Here’s what happened when the trooper was subjected to cross-examination while testifying:

At the hearing, Trooper Gabriel conceded that Dragon did not sit, stare, or freeze while sniffing Edmonds’ car. He testified, however, that is not actually how Dragon alerts. Instead, Trooper Gabriel testified, the dog alerts by changing his posture and increasing his respiration. He testified the dog’s actions of sitting, staring, or freezing are not an “alert” but rather a “final indication.”

lolwut

The dog alerts by breathing or moving, if it isn’t alerting by sitting, staring, or [re-reads testimony] not moving.

The court isn’t having this. If the court gave this testimony credence, the fact that the dog was present on the scene of any traffic stop and did literally anything (including sitting passively in the trooper’s cruiser), it would be “alerting,” thus “justifying” a warrantless search.

Rather than give this ridiculous cop more leash than he gives his dog, the court shuts this all down, referring to nothing more than the evidence submitted by the government in support (lol!) of this search and arrest.

The Court has viewed the dashcam and bodycam footage numerous times. The Court can discern no difference in the dog’s posture or respiration when he arrives at the driver’s side of the car for the second time, which is when he allegedly alerted. There is no visible change in his rate of respiration. Throughout the sniff of the car, Dragon followed Trooper Gabriel’s hand. He does not ever attempt to walk past Trooper Gabriel. When Trooper Gabriel moves, Dragon follows. When Trooper Gabriel stops, Dragon stops. This is Dragon’s conduct throughout the dog sniff. The only time Dragon walked ahead of Trooper Gabriel was when Dragon walked to the curb after first being released from his crate and then after Dragon completed the drug sniff and headed back to the state trooper vehicle.

The evidence is suppressed. The search was unjustified. Trooper Gabriel is a liar.

The strange thing is the government felt this was worth pursuing in court. Its actions exposed the trooper’s unconstitutional behavior, which began before the traffic stop (that wasn’t even a real traffic stop) was initiated (by the sedan’s driver, rather than the officer). The government had access to the dashcam footage and somehow decided it could get this suppression motion rejected.

That’s the saddest thing of all. When Trooper Gabriel’s employers should have been putting together paperwork to get him drummed out the law enforcement business, it was instead putting its efforts behind an effort that embarrassed everyone involved, including the dog that wanted nothing more than make sure Trooper Gabriel approved of its performance.

Give people ways to share images and videos with each other, and people will quickly push the limits. It’s what people do.

There’s been a slightly amusing story making the rounds these past few days: a digital “video portal” was set up to allow people in New York and Dublin to communicate with each other. And people… did exactly what you’d expect some people to do when given a spot to, um, express themselves:

However, it has also attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Some people on the Dublin side have been putting up pornographic images to the camera while one person posted video footage of the Twin Towers on fire during 9/11.

The problems have not been confined to the Dublin side. An OnlyFans model showed her breasts to onlookers in Dublin and then posted it on TikTok and Instagram. The New York portal was closed down for a time as a result.

The portal has now been closed so officials can “figure out” what to do about the fact that, sometimes, people will do wacky, crazy, or awful things if given a platform to do them.

I tend to side with Katie Notopoulos, whose take is to suck it up and open the portal back up and just revel in human absurdities.

This is terrible. The portal should reopen! In fact, we should have portals all over the country, all over the world — connecting two random places. We should have a portal between Miami and Tokyo, Florence and Dubai, Delhi and Stockholm. Currently, there’s a portal between cities in Lithuania and Poland, but let’s dream even bigger.

As she notes, at a time when people think tech is just awful, this was just fun, even if some people were perhaps less than elegant in how they used the portal.

But the portal is a case of technology that’s just pure joy.

It’s simple, there’s nothing too deep to think about. It’s not even “new” tech — video streaming between two locations is not exactly novel, although I suppose “it’s really big” differentiates it from, say, FaceTime. The situation is what makes it different — video chatting technology is usually personal, used at home or in your office conference room. Putting it in a public space, with other strangers — that makes it fun and special.

It is pure and human to be curious about strangers in another country, to be excited about the idea of seeing someone else across the screen, knowing they can see you, too. It’s fun. It’s delightful.

I mean, the story does remind me of the simple fact that if you allow people to communicate, you have to consider that some of them are going to do disturbing and awful things. And anyone managing a system that lets people communicate needs to at least consider what to do about that.

The weirdest part of this story is that it appears the people who set up the portal didn’t consider this or think about how they were going to handle these kinds of scenarios. It’s amazing that they seem to have been taken by surprise by all of this.

But sometimes (perhaps even most of the time), the answer on how you deal with the messiness of humanity communicating can simply be: nothing. Do nothing. Recognize that sometimes people are going to be people, and get on with your life.

Sure, there may be the occasional offensive image or inappropriate behavior. But that’s life. People can be weird, wild, and sometimes downright unpleasant. However, the vast majority of interactions are likely to be positive, fun, and enriching. Connecting with strangers across the globe, even briefly, can expand our horizons and remind us of our shared humanity. So let’s embrace the chaos, the silliness, and the serendipity. Open the portals and let people be people.

Sole source contracting is the sort of thing government agencies should seek to avoid. In some cases, it’s impossible, but most spending should be open to bidding to help ensure the government isn’t spending more than it has to — or worse, hooking up contractor buddies Mob-style.

There’s a whiff of impropriety in all of this, but it may be imaginary. However, it’s still worth examining more closely, as the Associated Press has done here. School shootings just aren’t going to go away here in the United States, so it’s understandable that legislators and educators are exploring their options. But what’s detailed in this article suggests several things, most of which aren’t exactly great.

Kansas could soon offer up to $5 million in grants for schools to outfit surveillance cameras with artificial intelligence systems that can spot people carrying guns. But the governor needs to approve the expenditures and the schools must meet some very specific criteria.

The AI software must be patented, “designated as qualified anti-terrorism technology,” in compliance with certain security industry standards, already in use in at least 30 states and capable of detecting “three broad firearm classifications with a minimum of 300 subclassifications” and “at least 2,000 permutations,” among other things.

Only one company currently meets all those criteria: the same organization that touted them to Kansas lawmakers crafting the state budget. That company, ZeroEyes, is a rapidly growing firm founded by military veterans after the fatal shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

The first thing worth closer observation is this part of the AP’s reporting: “Only one company currently meets all those criteria.” That company would be ZeroEyes, which has benefited from similar legislation and similar grants across the country.

Again, it’s understandable that if the goal is protecting children, legislators and schools are going to want the best product. At this point, that would appear to be ZeroEyes. It does have competitors but almost none of them are able to meet the very specific criteria that keep showing up in new gun detection tech grant legislation.

ZeroEyes also appears to be the only firm qualified for state firearms detection programs under laws enacted last year in Michigan and Utah, bills passed earlier this year in Florida and Iowa and legislation proposed in Colorado, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

On Friday, Missouri became the latest state to pass legislation geared toward ZeroEyes, offering $2.5 million in matching grants for schools to buy firearms detection software designated as “qualified anti-terrorism technology.”

This sort of thing would appear to be outside the boundary of normal coincidence. And yet, the co-founder of ZeroEyes told AP “We’re not paying legislators to write us into their bills.” That’s probably true. The days of garishly showing up at a lawmaker’s office with a briefcase full of money are (mostly) behind us. But the ability to influence not just the direction of legislation, but the creation of legislation is something industries and their lobbyists have been capable of accomplishing without having to actually “pay” anyone to do anything.

Now, it could be that ZeroEyes just got out in front of its competitors to meet a bunch of requirements that its competitors couldn’t. Or it could be that it chose to approach regulators, rather than legislators, to help ensure the specifications and requirements more closely matched its product than any of its rivals.

Or, it’s just a coincidence ZeroEyes is seemingly the sole beneficiary of recently crafted legislation that provides funding to schools to buy tech from a single source.

Given all of this, it would seem most likely ZeroEyes is persuading legislators these laws need to be written and these funds need to be available to protect children from school shootings. That only its product meets the requirements is a happy coincidence, rather than the result of loutishly dangling campaign contributions over malleable legislators’ heads.

America is a business more than it’s a country. These new laws are now forcing taxpayers to fund tech that hasn’t exactly shown it can handle the responsibilities expected of it. Given the numerous options available to legislators, law enforcement, and a small army of government agencies (including social services and mental health professionals), is it really the best idea to start throwing money at the shiniest option, especially when only a single provider meets the criteria… which means it doesn’t need to be all that shiny to begin with?

Here’s what the chairperson of the National Council of School Safety Directors (Jason Stoddard) had to say about ZeroEyes and its legislation-enabled takeover of the AI gun detection market:

The super-specific Kansas bill — particularly the requirement that a company have its product in at least 30 states — is “probably the most egregious thing that I have ever read” in legislation…

[…]

When states allot millions of dollars for certain products, it often leaves less money for other important school safety efforts, such as electronic door locks, shatter-resistant windows, communication systems and security staff, he said.

“The artificial-intelligence-driven weapons detection is absolutely wonderful,” Stoddard said. “But it’s probably not the priority that 95% of the schools in the United States need right now.”

That’s probably the most salient point, whether or not ZeroEyes’ hands are completely clean. Most AI in use today is still a bit wonky. Facial recognition tech has been around for years, but most products still suffer from the same issues, even though they’ve had plenty of time to address things like built-in bias or, you know, just assuming any images they find laying around the ‘net are free for the taking (and training).

And as for the co-founder’s claims it does not buy legislators or legislation, it hardly seems to matter. Purchased or not, legislators are willing to make ZeroEyes a sole source for in-school gun detection tech. As the AP reports, the company put on a presentation for state legislators earlier this year. Whatever else went on between ZeroEyes and Kansas legislators, this was (almost!) the end result:

Kansas state Rep. Adam Thomas, a Republican, initially proposed to specifically name ZeroEyes in the funding legislation. The final version removed the company’s name but kept the criteria that essentially limits it to ZeroEyes.

Yeah, that’s not a great look, even if ZeroEyes stayed out of the law-crafting process. Sadly, another Republican on the K-12 budget committee was even more voracious in the defense of ZeroEyes as a sole source provider, telling her fellow legislators the state “couldn’t afford the delays of a standard bidding process.” Whew.

All of this may just be coincidence. But given the reach of ZeroEyes and the number of states that have passed similar legislation that solely benefits the only company that (equally coincidentally!) can match specific criteria enumerated in these bills, there’s reason to doubt every bit of this is on the up-and-up.

You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across devices. Want to practice where you won’t have Wi-Fi? Download lessons before you head out, and you’ll be good to go. However you choose to access your 10K+ hours of online language education, you’ll be able to choose from 14 languages. Want to try your hand at all of them? Knock yourself out — you’ll have a lifetime to get it done. And you can tackle one or all in 10-to-15-minute bite-sized lessons, so there’s no need to clear hours of your weekend to gain real-life conversation skills. It’s on sale for $200.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

You’ve all heard the reports about how the internet, social media, and phones are apparently destroying everyone’s well being and mental health. Hell there’s a best selling book and its author making the rounds basically everywhere, insisting that the internet and phones are literally “rewiring” kids minds to be depressed. We’ve pointed out over and over again that the research does not appear to support this finding.

And, really, if the data supported such a finding, you’d think that a new study looking at nearly 2 and a half million people across 168 countries would… maybe… find such an impact?

Instead, the research seems to suggest much more complex relationships, in which for many people, this ability to connect with others and with information are largely beneficial. For many others, it’s basically neutral. And for a small percentage of people, there does appear to be a negative relationship, which we should take seriously. However, it often appears that that negative relationship is one where those who are already dealing with mental health or other struggles, turn to the internet when they have no where else to go, and may do so in less than helpful ways.

The Oxford Internet Institute has just released another new study by Andrew Przybylski and Matti Vuorre, showing that there appears to be a general positive association between internet usage and wellbeing. You can read the full study here, given that it has been published as open access (and under a CC BY 4.0 license). We’ve also embedded it below if you just want to read it there.

As with previous studies done by Vuorre and Przbylski, this one involves looking at pretty massive datasets, rather than very narrow studies of small sample sizes.

We examined whether having (mobile) internet access or actively using the internet predicted eight well-being outcomes from 2006 to 2021 among 2,414,294 individuals across 168 countries. We first queried the extent to which well-being varied as a function of internet connectivity. Then, we examined these associations’ robustness in a multiverse of 33,792 analysis specifications. Of these, 84.9% resulted in positive and statistically significant associations between internet connectivity and well-being. These results indicate that internet access and use predict well-being positively and independently from a set of plausible alternatives.

Now, it’s important to be clear here, as we have been with studies cited for the opposite conclusion: this is a correlational study, and is not suggesting a direct causal relationship between having internet access and wellbeing. But, if (as folks on the other side claim) internet access was truly rewiring brains and making everyone depressed, it’s difficult to see how then we would see these kinds of outcomes.

People like Jonathan Haidt have argued that these kinds of studies obscure the harm done to teens (and especially teenaged girls) as his way of dismissing these sorts of studies. However, it’s nice to see the researchers here try to tease out possible explanations, to make sure such things weren’t hidden in the data:

Because of the large number of predictors, outcomes, subgroups to analyze, and potentially important covariates that might theoretically explain observed associations, we sought out a method of analysis to transparently present all the analytical choices we made and the uncertainty in the resulting analyses. Multiverse analysis (Steegen et al., 2016) was initially proposed to examine and transparently present variability in findings across heterogeneous ways of treating data before modeling them (see also Simonsohn et al., 2020). We therefore conducted a series of multiverse analyses where we repeatedly fitted a similar model to potentially different subgroups of the data using potentially different predictors, outcomes, and covariates.

That allowed them to explore questions regarding different subgroups. And while they did find one “negative association” among young women, it was not in the way you might have heard or would have thought of. There was a “negative association” between “community well-being” and internet access:

We did, however, observe a notable group of negative associations between internet use and community well-being. These negative associations were specific to young (15–24-year-old) women’s reports of community well-being. They occurred across the full spectrum of covariate specifications and were thereby not likely driven by a particular model specification. Although not an identified causal relation, this finding is concordant with previous reports of increased cyberbullying (Przybylski & Bowes, 2017) and more negative associations between social media use and depressive symptoms (Kelly et al., 2018; but see Kreski et al., 2021). Further research should investigate whether low community well-being drives engagement with the internet or vice versa.

This took me a moment to understand, but after reading the details, it’s showing that (1) if you were a 15 to 24-year old woman and (2) if you said in the survey that you really liked where you live (3) you were less likely to have accessed the internet over the past seven days. That was the only significant finding of that nature. That same cohort did not show a negative correlation for other areas of well being around fulfilment and such.

To be even more explicit: the “negative association” was only with young women who answered that they strongly agree with the statement “the city or area where you live is a perfect place for you” and then answered the question “have you used the internet in the past seven days.” There were many other questions regarding well-being that didn’t have such a negative association. This included things like rating how their life was from “best” to “worst” on a 10 point scale, and whether or not respondents “like what you do every day.”

So, what this actually appears to do is support is the idea that if you are happy with where you live (happy in your community) than you may be less focused on the internet. But, for just about every other measure of well-being it’s strongly correlated in a positive way with internet access. There are a few possible explanations for this, but at the very least it might support the theory that the studies of those who are both facing mental health problems and excessive internet usage may stem from problems outside of the internet, leading them to turn to the internet for a lack of other places to turn.

The authors are careful to note the limitations of their findings, and recognize that human beings are complex:

Nevertheless, our conclusions are qualified by a number of factors. First, we compared individuals to each other. There are likely myriad other features of the human condition that are associated with both the uptake of internet technologies and well-being in such a manner that they might cause spurious associations or mask true associations. For example, because a certain level of income is required to access the internet and income itself is associated with well-being, any simple association between internet use and well-being should account for potential differences in income levels. While we attempted to adjust for such features by including various covariates in our models, the data and theory to guide model selection were both limited.

Second, while between-person data such as we studied can inform inferences about average causal effects, longitudinal studies that track individuals and their internet use over time would be more informative in understanding the contexts of how and why an individual might be affected by internet technologies and platforms (Rohrer & Murayama, 2021).

Third, while the constructs that we studied represent the general gamut of well-being outcomes that are typically studied in connection to digital media and technology, they do not capture everything, nor are they standard and methodically validated measures otherwise found in the psychological literature. That is, the GWP data that we used represent a uniquely valuable resource in terms of its scope both over time and space. But the measurement quality of its items and scales might not be sufficient to capture the targeted constructs in the detailed manner that we would hope for. It is therefore possible that there are other features of well-being that are differently affected by internet technologies and that our estimates might be noisier than would be found using psychometrically validated instruments. Future work in this area would do well in adopting a set of common validated measures of well-being (Elson et al., 2023).

On the whole it’s great to see more research and more data here, suggesting that, yes, there is a very complex relationship between internet access and wellbeing, but it should be increasingly difficult to claim that internet access is an overall negative and harmful, no matter what the popular media and politicians tell you.

For decades now, U.S. wireless carriers have sold consumers “unlimited data” plans that actually have all manner of sometimes hidden throttling, caps, and restrictions. And every few years a regulator comes out with a wrist slap against wireless carriers for misleading consumers, for whatever good it does.

Back in 2007, for example, then NY AG Andrew Cuomo fined Verizon a tiny $150,000 for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited (Verizon kept doing it anyway). In 2019, the FTC fined AT&T $60 million for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited, then repeatedly lying to consumers about it (impacted consumers saw refunds of around $22 each).

Similar state and federal fines and lawsuits have also been levied against these companies prepaid wireless brands over the years. This never-ending game of patty cake over the term “unlimited” also happens in Canada fairly routinely.

Last week, NY AG Leticia James that T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T will pay a combined $10.2 million settlement for — you guessed it — selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited:

“A multistate investigation found that the companies made false claims in advertisements in New York and across the nation, including misrepresentations about “unlimited” data plans that were in fact limited and had reduced quality and speed after a certain limit was reached by the user. The companies will pay $520,000 to New York and are required to change their advertising to ensure that wireless service plans are accurately and fairly explained.”

Will wireless carriers actually change their marketing tactics? Probably not! Will consumers see refunds? Probably not! Do the carriers have to admit any legal wrongdoing? Nope! Are the penalties stiff enough to deter future abuses? No way.

In this case, the settlement — which involved every U.S. state but DeSantistan Florida — was built on an investigation that started nine years ago but was effectively slow walked by industry lawyers. The investigation found that not only do wireless carriers (and their prepaid subsidiaries) routinely sell “unlimited” data plans with limits, but they also promote “free” phones that aren’t free.

If telecom industry history is any indication, the $10.2 million in fines will likely be watered down after another year or two of legal wrangling. And you’ll probably be right back here a few years from now reading about another wrist slap levied against an industry seemingly obsessed with abusing consumer trust — and the dictionary definition of very basic terminology.