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Russia is also trying to control mobile connections. In recent weeks, a mysterious new mobile company has popped up in Kherson. Images show blank SIM cardstotally white with no brandingbeing sold. Little is known about the SIM cards; however, the mobile network appears to use the Russian +7 prefix at the start of a number. Videos reportedly show crowds of citizens gathering to collect the SIM cards. The Russian forces realize they're at a disadvantage if they keep using Ukrainian mobile networks, says Cathal Mc Daid, the chief technology officer at mobile security company Enea AdaptiveMobile Security. The company has seen two separatist mobile operators in Donetsk and Luhansk expanding the territory they are covering to newly occupied areas.

Who controls the internet matters. While most countries place only limited restrictions on the websites people can view, a handful of authoritarian nationsincluding China, North Korea, and Russia, severely limit what people can access.

Russia has a vast system of internet censorship and surveillance, which has been growing in recent years as the country tries to implement a sovereign internet project that cuts it off from the rest of the world. The countrys System for Operative Investigative Activities, or SORM, can be used to read peoples emails, intercept text messages, and surveil other communications.

Russian networks are fully controlled by the Russian authorities, Malon, the Ukrainian telecom regulator, says. The rerouting of the internet in occupied Ukrainian areas, Malon says, has the goal of spreading Kremlin propaganda and making people believe Ukrainian forces have abandoned them. They are afraid that the news about the progress of the Ukrainian army will encourage resistance in the Kherson region and facilitate real activities, Zhora says.

At the heart of the rerouting is Miranda Media, the operator in Crimea that appeared following the regions annexation in 2014. Among partners listed on its website are the Russian security service known as the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

In many ways, Crimea may act as an example of what happens next in newly occupied areas. Only in 2017, Crimea was completely disconnected from Ukrainian traffic. And now, as far as I know, it's only Russian traffic there, says Ksenia Ermoshina, an assistant research professor at the Center for Internet and Society and an affiliated researcher at the Citizen Lab. In January last year, Ermoshina and colleagues published research on how Russia has taken control of Crimeas internet infrastructure.

After it annexed Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities created two new internet cables running along the Kerch Strait, where they connect with Russia. This process took three years to completesomething Ermoshina calls a soft substitution model, with connections transferring slowly over time. Since then, Russia has developed more advanced internet control systems. The power of the Russian censorship machine changed in between [2014 and 2022], Ermoshina says. What I'm afraid of is the strength of Russian propaganda.

Its likely that rerouting the internet in Kherson and the surrounding areas is seen by Russian authorities as a key step in trying to legitimize the occupation, says Olena Lennon, a Ukrainian political science and national security adjunct professor at the University of New Haven. The moves could also be a blueprint for future conflicts.

Alongside internet rerouting in Kherson and other regions, Russian officials have started handing out Russian passports. Officials claim a Russian bank will soon open in Kherson. And the region has been moved to Moscows time zone by occupying forces. Many of the steps echo what previously happened in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. Russia is making it clear that they're there for a long haul, Lennon says, and controlling the internet is core to that. They're making plans for a long-term occupation.

See more here:
Russia Is Taking Over Ukraines Internet - WIRED

By Garth Davies, Sarah Negrin, for The Conversation

The Canadian government iscurrently holding consultationson a new online hate bill. This bill would updateBill C-36, which addresses hate propaganda, hate crimes and hate speech; the amendment died following the election call last year.

Hate propagated on social media and other online spaces has grown exponentially in the past couple of years,driven to a significant degree by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The occupation of Ottawa earlier this year by the so-called freedom convoy also exposed anincreasingly worrisome relationship between online and offline environments.

It is difficult to argue against the motivations for the proposed anti-hate bill. At the same time, the discourse around the proposed bill is rapidly becoming fraught. There are serious concerns about the scope and unexamined assumptions of the bill which will result in legislation that is overly broad and unwieldy.

While the perceived imperative to do something about hate speech is understandable, the bill runs the very real risk of making things considerably worse.

First, there is danger in usingeuphemisms such as de-platforming and content moderation,which circumvent tricky discussions over censorship. We have to be honest about the fact that we are talking about censorship.

Rather than get bogged down by more philosophical concerns, we should instead be concerned about practical ramifications. Specifically, the very real likelihood that attempts to silence particular voices will only succeed in exacerbating the issues we are trying to address.

We must be wary ofthe law of unintended consequences, which addresses the unforeseen outcomes of legislation and policies.

Overt silencing will only serve tosubstantiate foundational far-right narratives, which include: The government is out to get us and Our ideas are so dangerous, the government has to suppress them. This, in turn, further animates and perpetuates the movement.

These attempts also expose the inherent hypocrisy of censorship, which is that it is not censorship if enough people disapprove of the intended target. The far-right will seize upon this sentiment and offer it as further corroboration, and will use it to amplifytheir calls for fundamental social change.

We must avoiding feeding these narratives.

Second, consideration must be given to the vulnerable groups that are most often the targets of hateful speech. It has been argued, and quite correctly, that particular communities including visible minorities, Indigenous and LGBTQIA2S+ people, immigrants and refugees are disproportionately harmed by, and deserve to be shielded from,far-right invective. Unfortunately, the potential dangers for these people by the new bill have received insufficient attention.

Members of vulnerable communities have expressed concern that the bills provisions could be used tolimit their online freedoms. This fear is grounded in fact, as historically, they have been disproportionately targeted for control by law enforcement. The thorny gap between best-laid plans on one side, and the realities of implementation and enforcement on the other, brings us back around to the law of unintended consequences.Internet scholar Lisa Nakamura describes different types of online racism.

Third, much of the discussion around the bill makes unrealistic assumptions aboutthe capabilities of the tech companies that manage social media platforms. Contrary to popular belief, big tech does not have the capabilities to easily identify and remove specific content. Relying on purely technological solutions massively underestimates and betrays a worrisome lack of understanding regarding the difficulties in moderating language.

Considerable research, including work one of the authors (Garth) has conducted with criminologists Richard Frank and Ryan Scrivens, has revealed that the far-right ecosystem is marked by an essentially distinct,coded language that is constantly evolving. This work has similarly highlightedthe challenges of trying to identify specifically violent language.

Apart from the fact that they dont want it, we should be leery of turning over editorial control to private corporations. So far, their efforts have beenchequered and may best be described as suspect. Any faith that this could be addressed through an over-reaching legislative framework is woefully misplaced.

This is not an argument for a social media free-for-all. It has long been evident thatthe anything-goes ethos underlying the earliest incarnations of the internetboth comically and tragically failed to anticipate the toxic quagmire that it has become. Certain online content must be (and in most cases already is) prohibited, including threatening and promoting violence.

But when we come to efforts to restrict content thatcouldlead to violence, we find ourselves standing on much thinner ice. Of course legislation has a role to play. And yes, tech companies should be part of the discourse aimed at finding solutions.

However, as the past 20 years have demonstrated, we cannot kill or arrest our way out of violent extremism, nor can we moderate or de-platform our way out of it. Hate speech is a social problem that requires social responses. In the interim, we must guard against unintended consequences of attempts to address online hate speech and refrain from feeding far-right narratives.

By Garth Davies, Sarah Negrin, for The Conversation

Garth Davies is Associate professor, Criminology, Simon Fraser University

Sarah Negrin is Masters student, Criminology, Simon Fraser University

Read more:
Regulating online hate will have unintended, but predictable, consequences - StopFake.org

The new changes affect Provisions on the Management of Internet Post Comments Services, a regulation that first came into effect in 2017. Five years later, the Cyberspace Administration wants to bring it up to date.

The proposed revisions primarily update the current version of the comment rules to bring them into line with the language and policies of more recent authority, such as new laws on the protection of personal information, data security, and general content regulations, says Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow at Yale Law Schools Paul Tsai China Center.

The provisions cover many types of comments, including anything from forum posts, replies, messages left on public message boards, and bullet chats (an innovative way that video platforms in China use to display real-time comments on top of a video). All formats, including texts, symbols, GIFs, pictures, audio, and videos, fall under this regulation.

Theres a need for a stand-alone regulation on comments because the vast number makes them difficult to censor as rigorously as other content, like articles or videos, says Eric Liu, a former censor for Weibo whos now researching Chinese censorship at China Digital Times.

One thing everyone in the censorship industry knows is that nobody pays attention to the replies and bullet chats. They are moderated carelessly, with minimum effort, Liu says.

But recently, there have been several awkward cases where comments under government Weibo accounts went rogue, pointing out government lies or rejecting the official narrative. That could be what has prompted the regulators proposed update.

Chinese social platforms are currently on the front lines of censorship work, often actively removing posts before the government and other users can even see them. ByteDance famously employs thousands of content reviewers, who make up the largest number of employees at the company. Other companies outsource the task to censorship-for-hire firms, including one owned by Chinas party mouthpiece Peoples Daily.The platforms are frequently punished for letting things slip.

Beijing is constantly refining its social media control, mending loopholes and introducing new restrictions. But the vagueness of the latest revisions makes people worry that the government may ignore practical challenges. For example, if the new rule about mandating pre-publish reviews is to be strictly enforcedwhich would require reading billions of public messages posted by Chinese users every dayit will force the platforms to dramatically increase the number of people they employ to carry out censorship. The tricky question is, no one knows if the government intends to enforce this immediately.

More:
China wants all social media comments to be pre-reviewed before publishing - MIT Technology Review

Justin Bonsignore celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway on Jun. 19, 2022. (Nick Grace/NASCAR)

In a season filled with positives and negatives, luck was on Justin Bonsignores side during the closing laps of Sundays Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway.

Contact between race leader Matt Hirschman and the lapped car of J.B. Fortin with three laps remaining created an opportunity for Bonsignore to slip past them on the bottom for his second victory on the 2022 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.

Bonsignore was prepared to settle for a second-place finish but was stunned that Fortin essentially gifted him the victory by interfering with Hirschman.

Id guess youd rather be lucky than good any day, Bonsignore said. Matt [and I] were neck-and-neck, but Im not sure whats going between [him and Fortin]. I could kind of see it coming from a mile away, so I got into [Turn 3], hooked the bottom and stood in the throttle for the first time all day.

RELATED: Results from the Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway

Good luck has been hard to come by for Bonsignore through the first five races.

Despite getting an early victory at Richmond Raceway, Bonsignore had not recorded another finish inside the Top 5 prior to Saturdays Duel at the Dog 200. The mixture of poor performances and mechanical issues relegated Bonsignore to seventh in the Modified Tour standings; 37 points behind leader Ron Silk.

Mother Nature cut Bonsignore a break when persistent rain showers on Saturday evening resulted in the starting lineup being set by practice speeds. Bonsignores time of 12.854 allowed him to start on pole for the rescheduled Duel at the Dog 200 on Sunday.

Bonsignores lead only lasted a handful of laps before he was passed by Hirschman. With plenty of time at his disposal, Bonsignore took care of his equipment and watched as Silk chased down Hirschman to take control of the race.

Silk proved to be untouchable for most of the afternoon but admitted that his car started to fall off as the race neared its conclusion, which forced him to settle for a third place finish behind Bonsignore and Hirschman.

Like Bonsignore, Silk was puzzled by Fortins decision to block Hirschman and cost him the victory.

[Fortin] just ran [Hirschman] all over the track and it looked like it was intentional, Silk said. It didnt really affect my finish, which was right about where it should have been. I had a great car the whole race but I ran out of grip with about 20 laps to go. It was a good effort and we led a lot of laps, which is all you can do.

Even though he did not get a win, Silk still managed to bolster his small points lead with Tommy Catalano and Jon McKennedy both enduring inconsistent afternoons.

Silk has yet to find Victory Lane so far in 2022 but he envisions a win coming to pass sooner rather than later with how efficient he and his team have been with six Top 10 finishes in six races.

You never know when youre going to have some sort of trouble, Silk said. Were just going to keep doing what were doing, but we need to be up here racing for the lead and get Top 3s. Im pretty confident going to all of these tracks and with the team that we have, we can knock off a win anywhere.

Silk knows that consistency will be imperative over the next several weeks, as he is expecting Bonsignore to be a part of the championship conversation once the season finale at Martinsville Speedway arrives in October.

Bonsignore is not used to facing points deficits this large shortly before the halfway point of a season, but he is still confident that he can shake off the bad luck and put together performances worthy of a fourth Modified Tour title.

With one of his favorite tracks in Riverhead Raceway next up on the schedule, Bonsignore is ready to start his turnaround when the next green flag flies.

Its good to get back [to Victory Lane], Bonsignore said. We were going to have a good run either way, but this is what you have to do to win these races. Weve really been struggling these past few weeks and Im just happy to finish on the lead lap. Sure enough, we won as well.

Sam Rameau and Doug Coby rounded out the Top 5 finishers at Monadnock. Completing the Top 10 were Eric Goodale, Jake Johnson, Austin Beers, Catalano and Jacob Perry.

A replay of Sundays Duel at the Dog 200 at Monadnock Speedway can be seen on the USA Network on June 25 at 11 a.m. ET.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be back at the track next weekend for their second visit to Riverhead Raceway in Riverhead, NY on Saturday evening. The race will be broadcasted live on FloRacing.

Read more:
Justin Bonsignore steals a victory in the Duel at the Dog 200 - NASCAR

Guns, weapon parts and ammunition are widely available for sale on Facebook and Instagram, new research shows, as experts say Meta is not doing enough to stop deadly weapons getting into the wrong hands.

Meta policy since 2016 has banned the sale or use of weapons, ammunition or explosives between individuals, including firearms parts. However, the study from Media Matters for America, a non-profit tech watchdog group, shows users of Instagram and Facebook can buy materials from unregulated sources to build high-powered, automatic weapons in just a few clicks.

Many of these listings are for 3D-printed or DIY gun kits, also known as ghost guns, which allow users to build weapons at home without completing a background check. Such weapons are a growing problem in the US, with 20,000 suspected ghost guns recovered in criminal investigations in 2021 a tenfold increase from 2016. Joe Biden in April announced a new effort to crack down on untraceable firearms, calling them weapons of choice for many criminals.

The study from Media Matters identified more than 40 active listings in the US on Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Shopping that are selling gun parts, accessories and ammunition including parts to build unregistered weapons at home.

Gun parts for sale included buffer assemblies, shoulder stocks, charging handles and rail systems. The study also identified listings for nearly every part needed to build an AR-15, the semi-automatic weapon used in a number of mass shootings including the deadly attack on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

While Media Matters study focused on public listings, other researchers have looked at sales taking place through private groups, where they say weapons sales are widespread.

A recent study conducted by the advocacy group Coalition for a Safer Web found that private Facebook groups with thousands of members are being used to sell and trade fully functional and often unregulated weapons and that in some cases the platforms algorithm has recommended such products and groups to users.

This is just another example of Facebooks lax terms of service allowing the marketing, promotion and sale of dangerous weapons including 3D-printed guns, said Eric Feinberg, the author of the Coalition for a Safer Web study.

Feinbergs study found dozens of listings inside private groups for weapons, including handguns, magazines and ammunition, and gun parts to automate existing weapons to make them more deadly.

Ashley Settle, a Meta spokeswoman, said that although the sale of firearms between individuals is banned on Facebook and Instagram, the posting or promotion of firearm content is allowed from legitimate retailers. The company distinguishes between these posts and enforces the policies through its commerce review system, which is largely automated.

She said that since the Media Matters report was not shared with the company, she cannot address specifics but any sale of guns or gun parts is a clear violation of our commerce policies.

We take action if we detect or are made aware of anyone attempting to circumvent this policy, including by banning the seller from our platforms and applying penalties to their account, she said.

The two reports were released days after the Washington Post revealed that although Facebook forbids the sale of weapons, it bans a user from the platform only if they have violated the policy 10 times an enforcement policy more lenient than those pertaining to violations such as calling for violence or promoting terrorism, which trigger a ban after one violation.

Metas failure to enforce its policies on gun sales directly leads to violence and extremist recruiting, said Shannon Watts, founder of gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action.

Guns have become a recruiting tool and organizing principle for the far right to stoke fear and recruit new members, she said. Facebook doesnt just offer an opening for this radicalization to occur their 10-strike rule on gun sales is incredibly dangerous. Its long past time for social media companies to stop pointing fingers elsewhere and actually take responsibility for the dangers occurring on their platforms.

Facebooks algorithms have been shown to contribute to radicalization in the past, with the companys own internal research showing 64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools. The platform has become a one-stop shop for both radicalization and access to deadly weapons, said Ben Wyskida, a spokesperson for Meta watchdog group the Real Facebook Oversight Board.

Facebook has its finger on the trigger, he said. Facebook is literally going to get someone killed rather than shut down or fix features that are profitable but encourage extremism. This should be fully investigated and stopped.

View post:
Meta banned firearms sales. Why are they still available on Facebook and Instagram? - The Guardian