Speech, with a Texas accent?
Court lets Texas restrictions on social platform content moderation take effect
The controversial Texas social media law HB 20 will take effect following a ruling today from a US appeals court. The tech industry trade groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) managed to block HB 20 in court last year, but that victory has been undone by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today granted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for a stay in NetChoice and CCIA v. Paxton. NetChoice and the CCIA were successful in blocking a similar law in Florida last year.
HB 20 allows Paxton’s office or Texas residents to sue social networks that moderate based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” among other offenses — language that potentially makes basic moderation decisions legally risky.
The ruling follows a confusing hearing where a Fifth Circuit judge claimed web services like Twitter “are not websites” and compared them to phone companies like Verizon, which are governed under specific common carrier rules set by the FCC. NetChoice and the CCIA can choose to mount an emergency appeal, but without quick intervention from a higher level like the Supreme Court, the law is now in force.
I guess this is cheaper than putting a camera on every street corner…
San Francisco Police Are Using Driverless Cars as Mobile Surveillance Cameras
… “Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,” says a San Francisco Police department training document obtained by Motherboard via a public records request. “Investigations has already done this several times.”
The document released to Motherboard is a three-page guide for how officers should interact with autonomous vehicles (AVs), especially ones that have no human driver inside. It outlines basic procedures such as how to interact with the vehicles (”Do not open the vehicle for non-emergency issues” and ”Do not pull vehicles over unless a legitimate law enforcement action exists”) as well as whether to issue a citation for a moving violation for a car with no human driver (”No citation can be issued at this time if the vehicle has no one in the driver’s seat” but an incident report should be written instead). And the section titled “Investigations” has two bullet points advising officers of their usefulness in collecting footage.
Privacy advocates say the revelation that police are actively using AV footage is cause for alarm.
(Related)
Akron preparing to join expanding traffic surveillance network; police say cameras with AI help solve crimes
The city of Akron is taking steps to become part of a national network of traffic surveillance cameras that has been growing in Northeast Ohio.
A recent demonstration of the system's capabilities came last month, when a police chase in Macedonia ended with the arrest of two people who police said had arrived in town to shoplift at a local store.
An automated license plate reader (ALPR) installed last fall by Georgia-based Flock Safety alerted police as a stolen vehicle entered town around 8:30 a.m. on April 21. Officers located the car minutes later in the local Target parking lot, they said, just as a thief and driver took off down state Route 82 with a stolen vacuum cleaner.
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