Author: Jeff Cassman

EPIC has joined a letter by Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate new research indicating that YouTube and Google are tracking and targeting ads at viewers of “made for kids” videos—an apparent violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and Google’s 2019 settlement with the FTC. The research comes from a report by Adalytics, an advertising performance optimization platform.

“We urge the Commission to determine the extent and purpose of these apparent data collection practices, and to determine whether YouTube and Google are using the data of children under 13 to target them with advertising,” the letter reads. “All violations of COPPA and the FTC Act should be addressed to the full extent of the Commission’s authority, up to and including financial penalties, algorithmic disgorgement, and a ban on monetizing the personal data of minors.”

“Google committed in 2019 that it would stop serving personalized ads on ‘made for kids’ YouTube videos, but Adalytics research shows that this harmful practice is still happening,” EPIC Deputy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald said. “Big Tech has shown time and time again that it cannot be trusted to protect Americans’ privacy.”

EPIC has long advocated for the FTC to take enforcement action against companies that violate the privacy and misuse the personal data of adults and children. In 2010, EPIC filed the complaint about Google Buzz that led to the FTC’s first consent decree with the company.

The rapid spread of Generative AI has recently entered a new front: censorship. An Iowa school administrator turned to ChatGPT to assist her in complying with the state’s recent legislative mandate to ban books with descriptions of sexual acts. The administrator had ChatGPT assess 50 commonly assigned books to see whether they described a sex act. Based on the results generated by ChatGPT, 19 of those books were removed from student access. 

This is just the latest example of how generative AI and its boosters can facilitate dangerous public policy, reinforcing the faulty belief that complex work requiring personal judgment—assessing context, propriety, artistic merit, and more—can be accurately performed by an algorithm. In this context, ChatGPT provides a handy list of books to ban while removing the workload and accountability from humans. And if those lists are incorrect, what are the community and authors harmed going to do—argue with a computer? 

Book banning, of course, is a problem that predates and extends well beyond bans based on automated or artificial intelligence input. In the counter-reformation era, the Roman Catholic Church attempted to halt unauthorized reading so people received information solely from priests and were less likely to interpret text themselves. In the 1930s, the Nazi party burned countless works by Jewish, communist, and other authors. Historically, books were banned in an attempt to keep the public uninformed so they wouldn’t question existing religious or political structures.

Nowadays, books are banned for… well, pretty much the same reason. Under the guise of protecting children from “harmful” or “offensive” material, schools and libraries are choosing or being forced to remove books with material that is deemed dangerous. The criteria for what makes information “dangerous” vary. Iowa is far from the only state banning books recently—school districts in Texas, Florida, Utah, Missouri, South Carolina, and many more have introduced bans this year as well. Often these policies effectively remove minority voices or block access to challenging ideas. Frequent targets of bans include content addressing sexuality (often including the existence of gay, lesbian, transgender, or non-binary characters), violence (often including racial violence), or profanity. 

The forces behind these bans seem to believe that children (and sometimes adults) should be prevented from interacting with uncomfortable or new ideas entirely rather than having the opportunity to engage with or question the material. The unfortunate result will be fewer adults who have encountered difficult issues and unfamiliar perspectives in a safe setting where they are able to discuss and explore—and therefore fewer adults equipped to engage with these issues and perspectives in the real world. Book banning is censorship. It is antithetical to the concept of free speech, it infantilizes the people it claims to protect, and it denies them the opportunity to think critically about the banned content. It does not keep weighty issues or differing perspectives from existing in the real world, it merely silences those attempting to engage with and educate others. It violates individual privacy and autonomy,…

Novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born August 30, 1797. She was best known as the author of  Frankenstein. Here is the opening of Britannica’s biographical  note:

“The only daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812 and eloped with him to France in July 1814. The couple were married in 1816, after Shelley’s first wife had committed suicide. After her husband’s death in 1822, she returned to England and devoted herself to publicizing Shelley’s writings and to educating their only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley.”

August 30th is also the birthday of the late Joachim Rønneberg, a hero of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. He was born in 1919. His exploits earned him the War Cross With Sword, Norway’s highest military honor. In April 2013, Rønneberg was presented with a Union Jack during a ceremony at the Special Operations Executive (SOE) monument in London to mark 70 years since the successful Gunnerside heavy water plant sabotage mission. Rønneberg died in 2018, just one year short of his 100th birthday.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

1. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners,…