Notices by Cathy Gellis (cathygellis@mastodon.cloud)

My latest on Techdirt:

"Don’t Be Fooled: Laws like KOSA Are Just Book Banning Democrats Can Get Behind"

KOSA's maybe dead, but it could come back, and it's not the only such bill Democrats are trying to pass. If they want votes in November, they need to stop it.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/05/dont-be-fooled-kosa-is-nothing-but-book-banning-that-democrats-can-get-behind/

While we're busy dealing with the unconstitutional attempt to keep kids off the Internet with KOSA, I filed an amicus brief this week for the Copia Institute explaining to the Ninth Circuit why California's age verification bill violates its FIrst Amendment rights.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/16/the-copia-institute-tells-the-ninth-circuit-that-the-district-court-got-it-basically-right-enjoining-californias-age-design-law/

I wrote and filed one of the most important amicus briefs I've ever written. It is for the combined NetChoice cases at the Supreme Court challenging laws passed by FL and TX to regulate online speech via regulating the platforms enabling it. But really it is about whether the First Amendment still applies online.

I wrote it on behalf of the Copia Institute, @mchris, who administers techpolicy.social, and Bluesky.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/07/we-teamed-up-with-bluesky-to-tell-the-supreme-court-how-state-social-media-laws-dont-take-into-account-user-empowerment/

Me just now boarding my first flight abroad since 2019:

Boarding Agent: Stand in front of the face scan.

Me: I decline.

Agent: You must.

Me: No, I don't.

Supervisor: (to agent) Just board her. (to me) You'll have to do this eventually.

Me: I'm a lawyer who fights these things. Not on my watch.

@silverwizard Not speech.

I have a new post at Techdirt, about the Biden Administration's National Cybersecurity Strategy Document, and its call for software developer liability in particular.

In sum: that part is a bad idea.

"Move Over, Software Developers – In The Name Of Cybersecurity, The Government Wants To Drive"

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/06/move-over-software-developers-in-the-name-of-cybersecurity-the-government-wants-to-drive/

@timkmak Would you like a Bluesky invite? I'd be happy to hook you up.

An upshot to the "Twitter Files" nonsense is that employees are fools to communicate on employer IT systems.

But it would be absolute #infosec disaster for the company if employees used third parties'.

Better employee privacy protections needed to address this conflict.

@neil @tiffanycli By what metric?

@neil @tiffanycli As a reader, I do feel deterred. I follow tons of people and rarely have the time to expand. For your stuff, I might be inclined more so than others, but it's really not often possible.

@mmasnick @neil @tiffanycli I don't want to render all CWs useless. They are good for spoilers or particularly upsetting content, just I don't think for anything else remotely consistent with the output I followed the person for.

@neil @tiffanycli @mmasnick Can't you just use a filter? Because the CWs obstruct my consumption of the content, and I might want it.

@neil @tiffanycli @mmasnick Because then I get to enjoy no value from them at all.

I'd value them for spoilers and explicit content. But I don't get to if I have to expand everything automatically just to be able to consume anything close to the amount of content I desire.

@neil @tiffanycli @mmasnick They literally are content warnings, and intended to serve as an obstructive barrier to the actual content. I just think if they are used as essentially subject lines they obstruct too many people from too much content.

Better to design the UI to have subject lines appear in bold so people can quickly scroll past items they aren't interested in without creating an actual obstruction for everyone.

@mmasnick @neil @tiffanycli That's the part I disagree with - I don't think people can use them in different ways. It's all or nothing, with a practice that entirely favors those who want them at the expense of those who don't.

@mmasnick @neil @tiffanycli CWs never existed, and certainly not like this.

What Twitter always needed was better user control over their own reading experience. This norm cuts the other way. It's regressive.