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[jipehog]

Google to end news access in Canada after bill to pay news publishers passes
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/29/google-canada-online-news-act-publishers-content-law

Thoughts?

More DeSantis is weak news:

How does DeSantis doing? I had some weak hope that he might be able to win Trump and loose to Biden, but this doesn't seem very likely.

[Telgin]

I keep getting mail from his campaign here in South Carolina, but I always throw it away immediately since I see the word "woke" on it like 5 times even in passing.  I'm getting so tired of hearing that word I'm going to have to stop using it.  I'm going to have to start telling people "I stopped being asleep" instead or something.

Not really sure how he's doing in real terms.  The only tiny insight I have is the conservative subreddit that I peek at occasionally, and I saw he was getting raked over the coals even there a few times for some things like passing the bill about car sales in Florida.  Whether that actually means anything is a different matter, and I'm sure he lost very few supporters over that.  Checking back on other days seemed to show the usual support for him over Trump.

[McTraveller]

WTF? Delaware wants to let businesses vote?  (Sure it's apparently local elections only... but what?)

[Frumple]

As near as I can tell from a quick check, it's a delaware "city" (seaford, voting population ~5k), though the change has to be okay'd through legislature (it's passed the house after failing repeatedly, but won't be seen by the senate until next year). There's apparently a single digit number of other municipalities in the state that have already passed something similar. It mostly seems to be giving municipalities the legal grounds to do something that dumb, basically, rather than mandating it for the state.

To all appearances it's less "delaware wants to let businesses vote" and more "they're not super interested in caring about some piss-tiny town screwing themselves over".

E: Which, in fairness, is still not exactly a good thing, but it's a different sort and scale of shite, y'know?

E2: Though, with a bit more looking, it's more something GOP fucks are using to screw with people (because of course it is) as part of whatever mess is going on with a budget bill, than it is anything. Someone local or that actually cares more about delaware probably has a better grasp of details, but my fuckometer has hit zero so anyone interested'll have to do the research themselves :V

[hedgerow]

WTF? Delaware wants to let businesses vote?  (Sure it's apparently local elections only... but what?)

I tell you, you gotta be there to even get money.

[Starver]

WTF? Delaware wants to let businesses vote?  (Sure it's apparently local elections only... but what?)

I tell you, you gotta be there to even get money.

I say good business, is where you find it.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[Grim Portent]

WTF? Delaware wants to let businesses vote?  (Sure it's apparently local elections only... but what?)

They're just trying to emulate the Republic from Star Wars.* Sure it contributed to the failure of the Republic, but who's keeping track?

*Y'know the Trade Federation, the bad guys with the droid army in the first prequel movie? They had a senate seat, and they weren't the only corporation with one.

More seriously, it's the sort of thing that should probably see a person put in jail for even suggesting, let alone allowing to get to the legal drafting or voting stage. It's about the clearest sign of being corrupt that I can think of short of a businessman literally handing a politician a sack with a dollar sign on it.

[Frumple]

For what staggeringly little it's worth, the change doesn't just target businesses, but artificial entities in general. It includes nonprofits (including, probably tellingly, churches) as well as more traditional businesses, and wouldn't grant anyone local extra votes; it's there to allow non-resident, non-property owners the ability to vote in the relevant elections.

... there is, admittedly, a certain je ne sais quoi in GOP politicians pushing an election change to literally let people bring in non-residents and foreigners to influence an election, though.

That said, shit's mostly kayfabe -- seaford is a town with all of 8k population, 5k capable of voting, that sees elections with less than 1k votes fairly often. It's not exactly some kind of major population center, and it's not precedent either; there's other (also tiny, from what I could tell) municipalities in delware with similar provisions. It's dumb and shouldn't be allowed to pass and the city in question are idiots for trying to begin with, but as stakes go, they're small.

[EuchreJack]

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/04/judge-limits-biden-administration-contact-with-social-media-firms-00104656

Apparently, Politico has no bias.

[hector13]

Since when did social media companies give a shit what governments say?

[Duuvian]

Wait, I thought all these poorly crafted and unconstitutionally restricting of legal free speech on the internet bills being proposed on the back of an international public scare campaign were said to have the goal of reducing exposure of vulnerable members of society to harmful content through reliance on our trusty legislators to determine what speech is allowed and how (when they aren't simply a tax levied by one corporation or sector on another.), for example requiring the notification of government regarding the access by citizens of speech that individuals in places of power do not approve of.

Spoiler: Rather hypocritical (click to show/hide)

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry celebrated the ruling, calling it a “historic injunction” against the Biden administration that prevents it “from censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans on social media” in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Also that politico article has a tracking cookie or some such, which is unusual with politico; it seems this only happens with some articles as I read politico often, and also as a side note this is not unique to politico. For example the following link seems to not have such a cookie if you test it with the process I give below.
https://www.politico.eu/article/bulgaria-nikolai-denkov-pm-russia-influence-rumen-radev/

 I noticed it only because I did the following process this time in order to respond in this thread: To test this, use firefox and obtain noscript through it's add-ons menu. Use noscript's default settings on the page and then allow only politico.com in page permissions (this is required to read the article), then try to login to this forums without closing the firefox window (closing the politico tab is fine as the cookie will persist through that). Noscript will give a warning about potential identity theft, as it has noticed a suspicious cookie I assume (fixed by closing firefox, assumably as mine is set to clear all cookies on close). Maybe that kind of bullshit would be a better target for restrictive legislation? Yes, yes it would.

[Lord Shonus]

The last US chemical warheads are expected to be dismantled today. This took a terribly long time and great expense because of the need to find a safe and environmentally sound means of destroying the things (previous methods were dumping them in the ocean or direct burning, which have Problems), as well as the sheer quantity of poison gas the US accumulated before negotiating the ban, but once completed there will be no pre-ban chemical weapons remaining on Earth.

This does not mean that there are no such weapons remaining in undeclared stockpiles maintained in violation of the ban, but it is still symbolically important.

[hector13]

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor uses a partial line veto to increase public school funding for 400 years, because lol.

It will likely be challenged legally, but it’s fun while it lasts.

Really should change the way public school is funded (by local property taxes, favouring the rich) but ah well.

[nenjin]

Ah the hypocrisy of Republicans claiming censorship while unilaterally banning books and educational content. Fucking ghouls.

[None]

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor uses a partial line veto to increase public school funding for 400 years, because lol.

It will likely be challenged legally, but it’s fun while it lasts.

Really should change the way public school is funded (by local property taxes, favouring the rich) but ah well.

I'm so happy we've had governor Evers.