Adults would be harmed by this ban 🧑🧵

In addition to the already stated dangers of increasing the risk of identity theft, fraud, devaluation of official documents, attacks on the most vulnerable, discrimination against marginalized groups, and self-censorship, a ban of social media for children would give a free pass for corporate platforms to perpetuate the harm they also currently cause to adults.

All that is harmful to children on social media is also harmful to adults.

Social media are an integral part of modern communication and it has many benefits, but commercial platforms have been exploiting their users for decades, much beyond what our society should deem reasonable.

It is time for the Canadian government to regulate social media, yes. Not by excluding children and teens from it, but by obligating platforms to be responsible in protecting the safety and sanity of its users. It should be more profitable to run a platform that is open, transparent, and healthy for its users than one that is not.

A ban on addictive algorithms and data reselling, strong privacy protections and user controls, mandated transparency and effective moderation, an obligation to implement proven safety measures, and important consequences for platforms that prioritize profits over users' safety would all be much more effective at protecting everyone on social media, including the children.

(6/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

Children would be harmed by this ban 🧒🧵

Despite how it might feel at first glance, a ban of social media for children would actually create new harm for children.

First, many children would try to circumvent the ban, this is already happening in countries with such legislation, like Australia.

Second, children who cannot circumvent the ban might be pushed to darker corners of the web to rebuild their social lives, on worse platforms, without any moderation or safety measures. Moreover, being pushed out of the legal frame, these teens and children might feel less inclined to report any abuses experienced to a trustworthy adult, effectively making the situation much worse.

Then, children living with abusive or unsupportive families could lose their support network overnight. It is quite common for 2SLGBTQ+ teens and children living with families that do not support them to find emotional support in a network of peers online. This is often vital to survival. Losing this support suddenly can have devastating permanent consequences.

(5/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

Lobbyists are influencing policies more than experts and advocates 💰🧵

Unfortunately, there are many groups that are putting pressure on governments all around the world to increase surveillance under the guise of protecting the children. The rapidly growing, for-profit, age assurance industry has all to gain in influencing governments to push for age verification processes and bans of social media for children.

Even Meta has reportedly invested heavily in a network of organisations to discreetly lobby for age verification at the operating system level.

Meanwhile, nonprofit organisations and advocates who genuinely care for the well-being of the public have been warning for years about the dangers of age verification and social media ban legislation, but have much less money and power to influence policies at the government level.

I implore you, as the elected representatives for all Canadians, to consider this threat of corporate influence cautiously in your decisions, to listen to the warnings from advocates and experts in the field, and to prioritize first and foremost the well-being and safety of all Canadians.

(4/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

A ban does nothing to address the harm caused by social media 🧨🧵

The things that harm children on social media also harm adults. A ban of social media for children sadly does nothing to reduce the harm caused by social media, it only reserves it to adult, and postpones it for children.

The addictive and manipulative black-box algorithms, the privacy-intrusive data collection, the harmful violent content and misinformation, are all hurting adults as well.

Moreover, children who do not go around the ban before the restricted age (other implementations have shown that most children will attempt to circumvent the ban) will find themselves completely ill-equipped to protect themselves from social media harm once they come of age, and will be made even more vulnerable by our own legislation claiming to protect them.

A true solution to this is to regulate corporate platforms to forbid addictive algorithms, targeted advertising, intrusive data collection, third-party data sharing, violent content, weak moderation, manipulative tactics, and other abusive mechanisms used by certain platforms to prioritize profits over the safety and sanity of its users.

This would not only help children, but adults and society as a whole as well.

(3/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

Age verification processes are dangerous to Canadians ⚠️🧵

Unfortunately, there is no magical solution: A ban of social media for children necessarily means a requirement to identify every adult using social media. This means that intrusive age-verification processes would have to be put in place by social media platforms, therefore collecting an immense quantity of very sensitive information from every Canadian adult using social media.

This is dangerous in many ways.

First, it means many (if not most) platforms will delegate this task to private for-profit third-party vendors with little to no incentive to protect this information properly. We have already seen data breaches of sensitive information in this process. This would increase the risk of Canadians becoming victims of identity theft and fraud, and would diminish the value of Canadian identification documents over time.

Secondly, this can create a permanent record of legal identities tied to social media accounts. This would endanger users who rely on pseudonymity online for safety, such as victims of domestic violence, trans and gender diverse people (for whom the legal identification might not match the name used on social media), performers using stage names online, and other people that are part of marginalized groups regularly targeted online (women, people of colour, 2SLGBTQ+ people, etc.).

All these vulnerable groups would only be one data breach away from incredible harm with the implementation of mandatory identity checks to access social media.

Furthermore, risking to link every social media account to a legal identity can have a silencing effect for activists, journalists, and whistleblowers. This can lead to self-censorship of topics important to discuss publicly in a free democracy.

(2/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

#Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day – A #Hero for the #Surveillance State?

source: themoviedb.org/movie/969681-sp…

At first, #Spider-Man: Brand New Day looks like another emotional #superhero #story. Peter Parker has lost everything. No one remembers him, not even MJ. He searches for his #identity while trying to protect #NewYork. The #film spends much of its time on #trauma, #loneliness, and #mental #health.

But behind this personal story lies a political #message. The film presents mass surveillance as something necessary and even heroic. This is where the #movie becomes much more interesting—and much more troubling.

Spider-Man uses powerful surveillance #technology to watch the city. He collects video from many security cameras. He scans every face to find criminals. Even the #police admit that this is probably #illegal. Still, the film treats these actions as acceptable because Spider-Man is one of the "good guys."

Jean Grey—now portrayed by Sadie Sink (She kept her role a huge secret beforehand for marketing reasons.) in the Marvel Universe—falls into the facial recognition trap set by Spider-Man's surveillance program. If, by the end, you feel sorry for Jean Grey because the script wants you to and you’ve let yourself be swept up in the drama, then please remember that at the beginning of the movie, Jean possessed an old man and sent him running into the street so he would be brutally run over. She’s a mass murderer who’ll stop at nothing to achieve her goal. She could easily achieve this goal with her incredible superpower, but she makes it unnecessarily complicated by first freeing the Scorpion, which is what draws Spider-Man's attention to her in the first place.

This idea has a long #history in popular culture. The strongest comparison is George Orwell's 1984. #Orwell imagined a #society where every citizen is watched. Surveillance is presented as a tool for #security, but it destroys #freedom. In Brand New Day, the situation is different because Spider-Man is a hero, not a dictator. Yet the basic question remains the same: Who watches the watchers? If one person can see everyone, who controls that person?

The film never really asks this #question. Instead, it assumes that surveillance is good as long as the right people #control it. This is one of its biggest #weaknesses.

Another interesting comparison is The Dark Knight. In Christopher Nolan's film, #Batman creates a machine that can monitor every mobile phone in Gotham. Lucius Fox calls it too dangerous because it gives one person unlimited power. Batman agrees. He uses the system only once to catch the #Joker and then destroys it immediately.

Brand New Day takes a very different approach. Spider-Man's surveillance technology is not treated as a #moral #problem. Instead, it becomes a normal #tool of #crime fighting. The ethical debate that makes The Dark Knight so powerful is almost completely missing.

The transcript also compares Spider-Man's work with modern surveillance technology. Peter Parker works closely with the Department of Damage Control and helps collect huge amounts of personal data. The review argues that this creates a positive image of a close relationship between #government institutions and powerful technology companies.

This makes the film feel surprisingly modern. Today, governments and private companies collect enormous amounts of digital information. Cameras, facial recognition, smartphones and artificial #intelligence make surveillance easier than ever before. The movie reflects this reality but rarely questions it.

One of the most interesting contradictions is #PeterParker himself. He wants #privacy for his own life. He hides his identity and wants to escape public attention. At the same time, he watches everyone else and scans thousands of faces. The film never fully explores this contradiction.

This creates an uncomfortable message. Privacy seems important for the hero but less important for ordinary citizens.

The citizens themselves hardly have a voice. They mostly watch, cheer and accept Spider-Man's actions without #discussion. They never decide whether they want to live in such a #society. They simply #trust the hero.

As #entertainment, Spider-Man: Brand New Day offers impressive visuals and emotional performances. However, its political ideas deserve much more attention. The film normalizes mass surveillance while presenting it as an act of kindness and #responsibility. It replaces difficult ethical questions with emotional storytelling.

Unlike 1984, it does not warn us about surveillance. Unlike The #DarkKnight, it does not seriously question its use. Instead, it asks the #audience to trust the hero completely.

That may be the film's most surprising message. The greatest danger is not an #evil government forcing surveillance on its people. The greater danger is that we willingly accept surveillance because it is carried out by someone we like.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day succeeds as an emotional superhero #drama. As a political film, however, it raises fascinating questions without giving convincing answers.

#cinema #criticism #fail #ethics #future #cybersecurity #ice #palantir #homelandsecurity #america #nyc #ny #humanity #humanrights #marvel #news #politics #policestate #police #bigbrother #propaganda #lawandorder #justice

🔌 Slate Auto's electric truck ships with no modem at all, and that's the privacy story.

The startup's $24,950 EV pickup has no built-in cellular connection, so the company physically can't track your location, remote-access the car, or pull data from it. A phone app handles settings and charging info, but it only works standing next to the truck, and Slate says app data is opt-in and never sold. Their words: "We collect data to make ownership better, not to turn the owner into the product."

The context matters. Mozilla's 2023 review called cars the worst product category it has ever reviewed for privacy, with 84% of brands sharing or selling driver data. The FTC banned GM from selling driver data in 2025 after OnStar collected location every 3 seconds. Meanwhile Ford published a patent application for in-car cameras that can read lips and facial expressions.

A policy can be rewritten next quarter, but hardware that doesn't exist can't be switched on. That's the durable part. One caveat from the EFF: the app data policy can still change as the company scales.

arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/s…
mozillafoundation.org/en/priva…

#privacy #EV #cars

Great new video from Techlore! Chat Control could turn a photo sent to a doctor into a police investigation. Techlore breaks down how photo/message scanning works and how to protect yourself.

By @techlore
🔗 techlore.tv/w/h8kW4d5yh4eh7peG…

#privacy #ChatControl #encryption #digitalprivacy

Henry Fisher

2026-07-25 16:00:29

The ULTIMATE Guide to Protect Yourself from Chat Control

A parent sends a photo of their sick child to a doctor, and ends up under police investigation... welcome to 1984. Initiatives like Chat Control and other advancements around the world aim to make this the permanent state of the internet. This video breaks down how photo and message scanning actually works, calls out the laws that want to mandate it, and shows you exactly how to protect yourself.

🔗 SOURCES & LINKS
• Fight Chat Control: fightchatcontrol.eu/
• iCloud ADP Setup Guide: support.apple.com/en-us/108756
• Signal: signal.org/
• Proton (Affiliate): go.getproton.me/SH2qs
• Proton (Standard): proton.me/
• Tuta (Affiliate): tuta.com/?t-src=techlore
• Tuta (Standard): tuta.com/

🔎 RELATED VIDEOS
youtu.be/USNy6fwJyME
youtu.be/EXYATfmuf7k
youtu.be/uy_brLDX6tI

📨 Stay ahead of the news without doom-scrolling. Surveillance Report covers what matters in privacy, security, and digital rights. Weekly, free: techlore.tech/#/portal/signup

🔐 MORE FROM TECHLORE
• Test your privacy & security gaps: quiz.techlore.tech/
• Close the gaps with the right tools: tools.techlore.tech/
• Compare dozens of VPNs side by side: vpn.techlore.tech/
• Learn everything from the ground up: techlore.tech/go-incognito-cou…
• Support Techlore, Join our Signal Group: techlore.tech/support/

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 INTRO
00:19 UNDERSTANDING THE STAKES
01:31 PART 1: UNDERSTANDING SCANNING
04:06 PART 2: WHAT TO DO
10:33 PART 3: CHAT CONTROL 2.0
#chatcontrol #encryption #datascanning

A parent sends a photo of their sick child to a doctor, and ends up under police investigation... welcome to 1984. Initiatives like Chat Control and other advancements around the world aim to make this the permanent state of the internet. This video breaks down how photo and message scanning actually works, calls out the laws that want to mandate it, and shows you exactly how to protect yourself.

🔗 SOURCES & LINKS
• Fight Chat Control: fightchatcontrol.eu/
• iCloud ADP Setup Guide: support.apple.com/en-us/108756
• Signal: signal.org/
• Proton (Affiliate): go.getproton.me/SH2qs
• Proton (Standard): proton.me/
• Tuta (Affiliate): tuta.com/?t-src=techlore
• Tuta (Standard): tuta.com/

🔎 RELATED VIDEOS
youtu.be/USNy6fwJyME
youtu.be/EXYATfmuf7k
youtu.be/uy_brLDX6tI

📨 Stay ahead of the news without doom-scrolling. Surveillance Report covers what matters in privacy, security, and digital rights. Weekly, free: techlore.tech/#/portal/signup

🔐 MORE FROM TECHLORE
• Test your privacy & security gaps: quiz.techlore.tech/
• Close the gaps with the right tools: tools.techlore.tech/
• Compare dozens of VPNs side by side: vpn.techlore.tech/
• Learn everything from the ground up: techlore.tech/go-incognito-cou…
• Support Techlore, Join our Signal Group: techlore.tech/support/

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 INTRO
00:19 UNDERSTANDING THE STAKES
01:31 PART 1: UNDERSTANDING SCANNING
04:06 PART 2: WHAT TO DO
10:33 PART 3: CHAT CONTROL 2.0
#chatcontrol #encryption #datascanning

OpenAI's rogue AI agent turned out to have hacked more than Hugging Face, and the more details come out, the less impressive it seems. Then Anthropic came forward with its own disclosure: three companies accessed during testing, two of which had no idea. Plus Iran-linked hackers burrowing into dozens of US water and energy systems, an activist facing a felony for wiping his GrapheneOS phone at the border with a duress password, and thousands of private Claude chats and Artifacts turning up indexed on Google. An AI-heavy week, with the usual data breaches, threats, and FOSS+ updates.

🗺️ The open-source answer to Google Timeline is finally here! Light up every city you've visited on a map nobody else owns: self-host Dawarich free or grab the hosted version at dawarich.app/techlore/ with code TECHLORE for 20% off your first year.

🔗 SOURCES & LINKS
• Sources, Podcast & Shownotes: techlore.tech/openais-hacking-…

🔎 RELATED VIDEOS
youtu.be/r2MyE33t7SQ

📨 Stay ahead of the news without doom-scrolling. Surveillance Report covers what matters in privacy, security, and digital rights. Weekly, free: techlore.tech/#/portal/signup

🔐 MORE FROM TECHLORE
• Test your privacy & security gaps: quiz.techlore.tech/
• Close the gaps with the right tools: tools.techlore.tech/
• Compare dozens of VPNs side by side: vpn.techlore.tech/
• Learn everything from the ground up: techlore.tech/go-incognito-cou…
• Support Techlore, Join our Signal Group: techlore.tech/support/

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 INTRO TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT
00:45 HIGHLIGHT: ROGUE AI
07:14 THEY'RE ATTACKING WATER
09:32 THE GRAPHENE PHONE WIPING CASE
15:00 OUR SPONSOR: DAWARICH
16:48 CLAUDE AI CHATS MADE PUBLIC
18:30 DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES
23:30 DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS
27:56 DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+
#claudeai #openai #ainews

Fresh episode of Techlore's Surveillance Report is out — worth a watch: AI hacking incidents, attacks on US water systems, a border phone-wipe felony case, and more.

By @techlore
🔗 techlore.tv/videos/watch/369a5…

#privacy #surveillance #cybersecurity #digitalrights

Henry Fisher

2026-08-01 03:37:44

The AI Hacking Scandal That Keeps On Giving...

OpenAI's rogue AI agent turned out to have hacked more than Hugging Face, and the more details come out, the less impressive it seems. Then Anthropic came forward with its own disclosure: three companies accessed during testing, two of which had no idea. Plus Iran-linked hackers burrowing into dozens of US water and energy systems, an activist facing a felony for wiping his GrapheneOS phone at the border with a duress password, and thousands of private Claude chats and Artifacts turning up indexed on Google. An AI-heavy week, with the usual data breaches, threats, and FOSS+ updates.

🗺️ The open-source answer to Google Timeline is finally here! Light up every city you've visited on a map nobody else owns: self-host Dawarich free or grab the hosted version at dawarich.app/techlore/ with code TECHLORE for 20% off your first year.

🔗 SOURCES & LINKS
• Sources, Podcast & Shownotes: techlore.tech/openais-hacking-…

🔎 RELATED VIDEOS
youtu.be/r2MyE33t7SQ

📨 Stay ahead of the news without doom-scrolling. Surveillance Report covers what matters in privacy, security, and digital rights. Weekly, free: techlore.tech/#/portal/signup

🔐 MORE FROM TECHLORE
• Test your privacy & security gaps: quiz.techlore.tech/
• Close the gaps with the right tools: tools.techlore.tech/
• Compare dozens of VPNs side by side: vpn.techlore.tech/
• Learn everything from the ground up: techlore.tech/go-incognito-cou…
• Support Techlore, Join our Signal Group: techlore.tech/support/

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 INTRO TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT
00:45 HIGHLIGHT: ROGUE AI
07:14 THEY'RE ATTACKING WATER
09:32 THE GRAPHENE PHONE WIPING CASE
15:00 OUR SPONSOR: DAWARICH
16:48 CLAUDE AI CHATS MADE PUBLIC
18:30 DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES
23:30 DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS
27:56 DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+
#claudeai #openai #ainews