Last year, I tried to create a “test suite” of websites that any new internet regulation ought to be “tested” against. The idea was that regulators were so obsessively focused on the biggest of the big guys (i.e., Google, Meta) that they never bothered to realize how it might impact other decently large websites that involved totally different setups and processes. For example, it’s often quite impossible to figure out how a regulation about Google and Facebook content moderation would work on sites like Wikipedia, Github, Discord, or Reddit.
Last week, we called out that Texas’s HB 20 social media content moderation law almost certainly applies to sites like Wikipedia and Reddit, yet I couldn’t see any fathomable way in which those sites could comply, given that so much of the moderation on each is driven by users rather than the company. It’s been funny watching supporters of the law try to insist that this is somehow easy for Wikipedia (probably the most transparent larger site on the internet) to comply with by being “more transparent and open access.”
If you somehow can’t see that tweet or screenshot, it’s a Trumpist defender of the law responding to someone asking how Wikipedia can comply with the law, saying:
Wikipedia would have to offer more transparent and open access to their platform, which would allow truth to flourish over propaganda there? Is that what you’re worried about, or what is it?
To which a reasonably perplexed Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales rightly responds:
What on earth are you talking about? It’s like you are writing from a different dimension.
Anyway… it seems some folks on Reddit are realizing the absurdity of the law and trying to demonstrate it in the most internety way possible. Michael Vario alerts us that the r/PoliticalHumor subreddit is “messing with Texas” by requiring every comment to include the phrase “Greg Abbott is a little piss baby” or be deleted in a fit of content moderation discrimination in violation of the HB20 law against social media “censorship.”
Until further notice, all comments posted to this subreddit must contain the phrase “Greg Abbott is a little piss baby”
There is a reason we’re doing this, the state of Texas has passed H.B. 20, Full text here, which is a ridiculous attempt to control social media. Just this week, an appeals court reinstated the law after a different court had declared it unconstitutional. Vox has a pretty easy to understand writeup, but the crux of the matter is, the law attempts to force social media companies to host content they do not want to host. The law also requires moderators to not censor any specific point of view, and the language is so vague that you must allow discussion about human cannibalization if you have users saying cannibalization is wrong. Obviously, there are all sorts of real world problems with it, the obvious ones being forced to host white nationalist ideology or insurrectionist ideation. At the risk of editorializing, that might be a feature, not a bug for them.
Anyway, Reddit falls into a weird category with this law. The actual employees of the company Reddit do, maybe, one percent of the moderation on the site. The rest is handled by disgusting jannies volunteer moderators, who Reddit has made quite clear over the years, aren’t agents of Reddit (mainly so they don’t lose millions of dollars every time a mod approves something vaguely related to Disney and violates their copyright). It’s unclear whether we count as users or moderators in relation to this law, and none of us live in Texas anyway. They can come after all 43 dollars in my bank account if they really want to, but Virginia has no obligation to extradite or anything.
We realized what a ripe situation this is, so we’re going to flagrantly break this law. Partially to raise awareness of the bullshit of it all, but mainly because we find it funny. Also, we like this Constitution thing. Seems like it has some good ideas.
They also include a link to the page where people can file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, asking him to investigate whether the deletion of any comments that don’t claim that his boss, Governor Greg Abbott, is “a little piss baby” is viewpoint discrimination in violation of the law.
Does the existence of life on Earth tell us anything about the probability of abiogenesis—the origin of life from inorganic substances—arising elsewhere? That’s a question that has confounded scientists, and anyone else inclined to ponder it, for some time.
A widely accepted argument from Australian-born astrophysicist Brandon Carter argues that the selection effect of our own existence puts constraints on our observation. Since we had to find ourselves on a planet where abiogenesis occurred, then nothing can be inferred about the probability of life elsewhere based on this knowledge alone.
At best, he argued, the knowledge of life on Earth is of neutral value. Another way of looking at it is that Earth can’t be considered a typical Earth-like planet because it hasn’t been selected at random from the set of all Earth-like planets.
However, a new paper by Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist who currently teaches mathematics at the U of A, is arguing that Carter used faulty logic. Though Carter’s theory has become widely accepted, Whitmire argues that it suffers from what’s known as “the old evidence problem” in Bayesian confirmation theory, which is used to update a theory or hypothesis in light of new evidence.
After giving a few examples of how this formula is employed to calculate probabilities and what role old evidence plays, Whitmire turns to what he calls the conception analogy.
As he explains, “One could argue, like Carter, that I exist regardless of whether my conception was hard or easy, and so nothing can be inferred about whether my conception was hard or easy from my existence alone.”
In this analogy, “hard” means contraception was used. “Easy” means no contraception was used. In each case, Whitmire assigns values to these propositions.
Whitmire continues, “However, my existence is old evidence and must be treated as such. When this is done the conclusion is that it is much more probable that my conception was easy. In the abiogenesis case of interest, it’s the same thing. The existence of life on Earth is old evidence and just like in the conception analogy the probability that abiogenesis is easy is much more probable.”
In other words, the evidence of life on Earth is not of neutral value in making the case for life on similar planets. As such, our life suggests that life is more likely to emerge on other Earth-like planets—maybe even on the recent “super-Earth” type planet, LP 890-9b, discovered 100 light years away.
Those with a taste for math can read Whitmire’s paper, “Abiogensis: The Carter Argument Reconsidered,” in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
More information: Daniel P. Whitmire, Abiogenesis: the Carter argument reconsidered, International Journal of Astrobiology (2022). DOI: 10.1017/S1473550422000350
Following one of the biggest data breaches in Australian history, the government of Australia is planning to get stricter on requirements for disclosure of cyber attacks. From a report: On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Australian radio station 4BC that the government intended to overhaul privacy legislation so that any company suffering a data breach was required to share details with banks about customers who had potentially been affected in an effort to minimize fraud. Under current Australian privacy legislation, companies are prevented from sharing such details about their customers with third parties.
The policy announcement was made in the wake of a huge data breach last week, which affected Australia’s second-largest telecom company, Optus. Hackers managed to access a vast amount of potentially sensitive information on up to 9.8 million Optus customers — close to 40 percent of the Australian population. Leaked data included name, date of birth, address, contact information, and in some cases, driver’s license or passport ID numbers. Reporting from ABC News Australia suggested the breach may have resulted from an improperly secured API that Optus developed to comply with regulations around providing users multifactor authentication options.
On Monday, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, issued a decree [PDF, not secure] naming Snowden (#53), among others, as being granted the boon of Russian citizenship.
Snowden has been living in Russia since 2013 when the US charged him with espionage and he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport with the help of WikiLeaks and ended up stranded in Russia with a canceled passport. He was granted asylum in Russia and temporary residency until October 2020, when he became a permanent resident. He and his wife Lindsay reportedly applied for citizenship the following month.
The citizenship comes at an awkward time. Putin last week signed what he described as a “partial mobilization” order to conscript soldiers for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has resulted in severe losses for the Russian military, which now needs to replenish its forces. Per its regulations, Russia can call up men and women between the ages of 18 and 60, even reportedly recruiting those in prison to fight.
The Russian callup is supposed to be for citizens with military training, which Snowden has. He enlisted in the US Army but was invalided out due to injuries suffered during special forces training.
