People…saying nice things about you…cannot be the standard by which we render something criminal coercion. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Opting Out (#1336)
If other big websites followed suit, the damage done by this totalitarian nonsense would be dramatically curtailed:
Wikipedia is challenging the UK’s…Online Safety Act…[because] it is at risk of being subjected to the act’s toughest category 1 duties, which…[would undermine] the safety and privacy of Wikipedia’s army of volunteer editors…its entries could be manipulated and vandalised, and resources would be diverted from protecting and improving the site…if…Wikipedia [chose not to dox its] users and editors, it would [be forced] to allow anonymous [trolls] to block other posters from fixing or removing any content[, including intentional misinformation or vandalism inserted by the same troll. Doxing]…volunteer editors [to governmental busybodies] would [also]…breach…the foundation’s commitment to collecting minimal data about readers and contributors…volunteer communities working in more than 300 languages could be exposed to “data breaches, stalking, vexatious lawsuits or even imprisonment by authoritarian regimes”…
Torture Chamber (#1457)
A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners:
A federal judge [has] stripped control of the Rikers Island jail complex from New York City and ordered the appointment of an independent manager to fix rampant violence and persistent constitutional violations…Judge…Laura Taylor Swain…warned city officials last year that she was inclined to impose a receivership after finding that the city was in contempt of…an agreement it entered in 2015 to settle a lawsuit over brutality at Rikers. In fact, violence, death…and most other metrics of human misery got demonstrably worse…The loss of direct control of Rikers is…one of the loudest warning sirens so far that something has gone profoundly wrong in American prisons and jails…Last year, a Justice Department investigation found “dehumanizing” filth and violence at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta…The Justice Department found unconstitutional conditions at three Mississippi prisons last year as well…In one Texas county jail, three people died of thirst over a two-year period. And in Texas state prisons, which lack air conditioning, people are being cooked to death in the summer heat. On the West Coast, one man lay dying for four hours before jail staff noticed…[and] in Alameda County, California…jail staff ignored [a] corpse for three days…
The Public Eye (#1470) 
Much, much, much more of this, please:
A…candidate for [New Jersey] State Assembly is selling photos of her feet on an adult content website…Rebecca Holloway, a former Clementon school board member…has been legally selling photos of her feet in various poses on Feetfinder.com for the last two years…and…[is] a self-employed marketing consultant…
You Were Warned (#1483)
I really wish I were wrong about the Uniparty:
…Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal joined MAGA Republicans to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act…a bill that Heritage [Foundation and sponsor Marsha Blackburn have] proudly proclaimed as central to [the] strategy of censoring progressive content around LGBTQ issues and abortion…It raises a huge question of…what the fuck are they thinking?…The Trump administration is systematically implementing every element of Heritage’s Project 2025 censorship playbook. There’s no more room for wishful thinking about how KOSA might be used. And yet, Democrats seem to act as if none of that is happening, and we can just assume good faith in how KOSA will be implemented and enforced by an FTC that has loudly proclaimed its willingness to conduct partisan, culture war witch hunts on behalf of Project 2025’s goals…last year, House GOP members actually stopped the bill after realizing it was a censorship tool that could be used against their own speech. But now that Trump has won (and the GOP acts as though there will never be another free election), that objection may evaporate…
The Mob Rules (#1514)
Wannabe censors team up with ambulance-chasers to capitalize on mob rule laws:
[Morality in Media] has filed lawsuits against four porn websites for allegedly failing to follow a [predator]y…Kansas law that requires porn sites to verify users [sic] age…The suits claim a Kansas [woman] found [her] 14-year-old had been accessing…pornography on [her old laptop, which he found in a closet]…“Kansas law requires pornography companies to [let themselves be pillaged by neglectful prudes who don’t bother to install censorship software on their own computers],” said Dani Pinter…of [Morality in Media]’s Law[fare arm]…
Imaginary Evils (#1516) 
Liz Brown on another company the government is trying to destroy with “sex trafficking” myths despite a lack of “sex trafficking” charges:
…in…the OneTaste trial…Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaitlin Farrell a[sked] government witness Rebecca Halpern…[where the] clitoris…is…[as part of questioning about] orgasmic meditation…[which] OneTaste encouraged as a daily practice. Halpern had been a willing participant in O.M., as a student and later a coach…in the second week of trial, the clitoris isn’t the only thing that the feds seem at a loss to find. Also missing…has been convincing evidence of coerced or forced labor…four witnesses have testified…that they were able to come and go freely…that they had free access to phones, computers, email, and mail—and that they were free to visit family, friends, and places…Some took vacations. Some had outside jobs…they had other places and skills they could turn to, college degrees, loved ones outside the group. They also had agency within the organization, accepting and advocating for different positions and conditions, and leaving these positions when they wanted to without threats or backlash…
Business Opportunity (#1527)
If you thought “asset forfeiture” was brazen robbery, get a load of this:
Honey Meerzon’s parents are Jews from the Soviet Union…Luis Romero’s parents fled Castro’s Cuba when he was eight years old. The two ended up as neighboring business owners…in Perth Amboy, New Jersey…Romero has…run…his family’s tire shop, Quick Tire, for…20 years. Meerzon has owned the four-unit rental property next door for…ten. Now, the…city council of Perth Amboy [has declared] that Meerzon’s and Romero’s properties were not, in fact, comfortable homes or a successful business, but are rather blighted hazards…because their two buildings are too close together, too close to the street, and have…stray cats [nearby]…the city says it is now entitled to [steal] the properties…for…a massive…warehouse project…[by a fascist collaboration] between the city’s redevelopment agency and Denver-based developer Viridian Partners…
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Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than the knowledge that there are private affairs that are none of their business.
