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[scriver]

Statements of great concern:
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/28/california-lawmakers-say-its-time-to-regulate-the-internet-the-same-way-china-does/

I mostly skimmed the article but that headline is one hell of a way to interpret this:

 

"And as someone that’s on many platforms, including TikTok, the reality is if you look at in China, they regulate TikTok heavily and only allow for educational content for young people. And yet here we just presume that we don’t have control over it and it’s just completely not true. We do have some degree of control, and to our colleagues’ point, because of a lack of federal action we can’t just sit on our hands, especially given the fact that there’s technology, much of it is being created here in our own backyard, in my district and near my district. And so I do think that we have an extra obligation to protect our youth and to ensure that these very valuable … otherwise very valuable social media companies and experiences that they can provide are done so in a way that creates the least amount of harm possible to our youth. So I want to thank the senator and would also like to be added on as a co-author."

Because that's the only thing I can find that that headline could be referring to.

Meeting technological and societal changes with something more than just shrugging your shoulders and saying "laissez faire" is not the same as authoritarianism and oppression.

[Micro102]

Is there another source/opinion on this? Because that techdirt website is painful to read and when I wanted to find a source for something it either wasn't there, or it linked to yet another painful-to-read article from the same website.

[McTraveller]

Heh fun, Massachusetts is now joining the political regions that want to tax X to fund Y, even though the users of Y probably have very little Venn-diagram overlap with the users of X.

Specifically: some lobby got some politicians to propose a 5% tax on streaming services to fund public access cable channels.

Now, I'm all for taxes to support "suppliers of last resort", but I can't get behind public access cable channels being in the category of things for which I'd be willing to pay. I mean, those channels are not even accessible by the entire citizenry of an area.  Hasn't the citizenry spoken, by ditching cable?

Now, if the tax wasn't to support the dying industry, but instead was to fund a job transfer program instead, I'd probably be less inclined to lament the situation.

[EuchreJack]

DeSantis employs his knack for pissing everyone off by offending an Anti-abortion group: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/31/desantis-sba-anti-abortion-unacceptable-00109052
What a loser

[Starver]

Now, if the tax wasn't to support the dying industry, but instead was to fund a job transfer program instead, I'd probably be less inclined to lament the situation.

I suppose, technically, it's a Robin Hood Tax within the same broad industry. Not exactly directly hypothecated, but more precise than much "Tax X (=> shove into general taxation pot =>) Fund Y".

Not saying it's a good use of governing powers (honestly, I don't really know anything about Cable TV beyond what I pick up as memes/tropes from US media itself, i.e. the old 'standard' not the current trend under streaming-era pressures), but doesn't sound overtly arbitrary.


I'm also a general supporter of public-access anything (if you need a cable connection, and those are being withdrawn/surrendered/unsubscribed from then even "free" services 'broadcast' via them are not really universally accessible, of course). But what's the retraining/job transfer scope, in your mind? Getting the individual currently running the "It's the Corner Of 7th And Donovan Eternal Frat Party Show!" cable programme to transfer their efforts to a Youtube channel? Getting the physical Cable Guy to stop taking backhanders to unofficially wire people into the Movie Channel service and start helping people install torrent clients on their PCs? Retiring the whole staff at the station hub and liquidating its infrastructure to set them all up to pursue their own particular favourite form of craftwork on Etsy?


Really, I'm somewhat at sea on understanding the arguments applicable here. Probably none of the above is any proper (counter-)argument to what you said, and likely needs no response in turn just to humour this particular furriner, I'm just voicing my basic unfamiliarity with the issue (and US culture, in a first-hand manner) and where I'm clearly not in the loop enough to appreciate the issue sufficiently.

[McTraveller]

So public access channels isn't "government giving people cable."  It is like you said - it's basically channels for local schools and stuff to broadcast local events.  The way it used to work is that cable companies paid local governments a fee (ostensibly to compensate for the natural monopoly aspect of a single or very few set of cables in the community).  This was passed on to the cable subscribers.

So my main philosophical ire is that any tax really should be levied on the infrastructure not on the service. Taxing Netflix and Disney+ or whatever is easy, because they're subscriptions. But how do you tax non-subscription streaming like plain YouTube or Twitch? There are no subscribers, do you tax the advertising?  So an infrastructure tax is far easier and less costly to administer.

Taxing the infrastructure is also more simple since it doesn't involve trying to define what "streaming service" is, versus say reading stuff on an online bulletin board.

Goes back to the whole net neutrality stuff: just force the physical cables or EM waves to be treated separately from the content, public-owned infrastructure and then let whoever send their bits over it.

[Starver]

Well, I'd read "a 5% tax on streaming services" as being the prime and only realistically capturable competitor for the not-as-new-media. To grab Youtube revenues-by-ad-watching would be tricky, philosophically, if not technically (not sure Youtube would easily play ball, even if Netflix/etc integrated an additional local tax burden into their subscription scheme).

At some point, it's going to be like a generalised "Internet Tax" or indiscriminate C90 Tape Tax.

But it looks like I'm slightly more confused than before. I was thinking that (either directly from taxes/levies/fees gathered from the monopolies, or as one particular dip out of the pot which gets fed by them and other blanket incomes) the local authority either fully-funded a public concern (e.g. school, maybe a community church) or fund-matched a small scale private endeavour ("basement broadcaster" types with spare time on their hands and conspiracy theories to promulgate; or a midi-sized church that's now too big to be a charity and on the way to being a business-like mega-church that'll eventually buy its own satellite channels) to fill in mandated 'gaps' in the broadcasting schedule (high-number channels and/or graveyard-shift periods on non-24hr channels) in order to give them a (more) equal footing against the syndication-backed major channels/programming.

Now it sounds like it is(/was) more like feeding discounts to the watching households, the way you put it.


No, it's beyond my experience (I can explain the UK's "TV Licence" to you, if you want, but it probably sounds just as strange) and unless you can couch things in terms of such as U.H.F., Wayne's World and The Cable Guy then I'm probably not going to properly appreciate the whole thing.

[McTraveller]

Eh no it's not feeding any discounts to consumers - the "pass it on" was "the cable companies passing on the franchise fee to the customers."

Anyway, it's an age-old story of, what's the quote? "As soon as people realize they can vote to take other people's money for their own purposes..."?

[Vector]

I'm concerned about KOSA (particularly the broad-spectrum powers regarding defining what types of content are harmful to minors). We could be looking at a very different internet soon in terms of adults being able to access needed information freely and with reasonable expectations of privacy.


This suddenly came up for me in a visceral way because the Habitica app, which I use to help keep track of tasks and manage my garbage mental health, is shutting down all of its forum-like features, AKA "guilds," in the next week. Guilds are themed chats which may be private or public. In particular I'm losing access to a private trauma support group and match services for the remaining group chat feature, the "party," will now be randomized. Guilds may have organized chats between thousands of people, whereas my party has 8 members.

(Posting volume in Guilds is generally pretty low. There are relatively few posters and many, many readers).

I take issue with the changes I've mentioned because one of the things I try to avoid online is private or even semi-private chats with minors, because I am not cisgender as you know, and it is better not to have any ambiguity as to what has been discussed. In particular, my "party" has no minors in it, and all of the adults were recruited from a left-leaning guild and are sympathetic to trans people. I am not really willing to go through a randomized matching process in the current political situation.

I am especially annoyed because my Habitica social circle has zero overlap with any of my other online or meatspace identities, which actually really helped when it came to the trauma management. It was private and I could say whatever embarrassing thing I needed to and get support. I don't want to just move the guild feature over to Discord, for example. I really wanted it to be fully detached from all my other things.


Additionally, this year a psychiatrist in California ghosted me during intake for trauma-focused group therapy after I divulged my gender identity. Unfortunately that gender identity is very much bound up with the types of events and the sometimes atypical way in which I've reacted to them, so mentioning it was necessary for my care and not really optional. Online support has been really helpful for the past few years and it feels like it's under threat right now.

I don't know what to say. I'm trying not to let my feelings run away with me, but this situation over at Habitica came very out of left field for me, and I'm hoping it's not just the tip of the iceberg in terms of sudden and drastic KOSA-related changes.

[EuchreJack]

Since when has legislation "protecting children" ever been anything less than weaponized legislation against Women & LGBTQ?

[Frumple]

The only instances I think I've ever noticed were bans on child labor and underage marriage.

... those of you who have been paying attention, may be aware the primary anti-LGBTetc political forces in this country are also the primary protectors of the latter and actively trying to undermine the former.

But yeah, hopefully that was just corporate brainrot of some sort instead of anything legislation related. There's been some remarkably dumb internet related stuff coming out of congress lately, which on one hand is a day ending in y, but on the other hand is, well. Remarkably dumb and everyone with sense wishes they'd just goddamn stop.

[McTraveller]

Yeah I find this hyperbole unhelpful.

Yes people do slap labels on heinous things to make them sound laudable, but making absolutist statements like "all legislation claiming to protect <X> is really a weapon against <Y>" just causes people to reinforce their positions.

So call out the specific instances, yes - but please, please don't make unfounded and, frankly, detrimental generalizations.

[TD1]

Since when has legislation "protecting children" ever been anything less than weaponized legislation against Women & LGBTQ?

?

https://nacac.org/advocate/key-us-child-welfare-laws/

Laws issued concerning adoption, child protection, and sex trafficking.

It seems there's a sizable body of legislation 'protecting children' which aims to... well, protect children 

[hector13]

Since when has legislation "protecting children" ever been anything less than weaponized legislation against Women & LGBTQ?

?

https://nacac.org/advocate/key-us-child-welfare-laws/

Laws issued concerning adoption, child protection, and sex trafficking.

It seems there's a sizable body of legislation 'protecting children' which aims to... well, protect children 

On the other side of that coin, you have things like the moral panic on D&D in the 80s, and the moral panic of video games in the 90s and 00s. Probably a morall panic about rock and roll in the 50s and 60s.

Some legislators like to use “protecting children” to get into the headlines.

[Vector]

But yeah, hopefully that was just corporate brainrot of some sort instead of anything legislation related.

Unfortunately they explicitly said that nuking the forums was because new legislation means they would have to do much closer moderation of the chats, and they can't afford it. We won't be able to access old logs either, of course.

(I think it could still just be corporate brainrot, to be clear. But it is an unusual, sudden, and aggressive move for a very small corp)