geosoco

In a conversation with Mike Solan, the head of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, Seattle Police Department officer and SPOG vice president Daniel Auderer minimized the killing of 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula by police officer Kevin Dave and joked that she had “limited value” as a “regular person” who was only 26 years old.

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In fact, as we reported exclusively, Dave was driving 74 miles an hour in a 25 mile per hour zone and struck Kandula while she was attempting to cross the street in a marked and well-lighted crosswalk.

Meta acknowledged in a statement to The Washington Post that Threads is intentionally blocking the search terms and said that other terms are being blocked, but the company declined to provide a list of them. A search by The Post discovered that the words “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” “porn,” “coronavirus,” “vaccines” and “vaccination” are also among blocked words.

“The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” the statement said, adding that the company will add search functionality for terms only “once we are confident in the quality of the results.”

Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University, discovered this himself when he attempted to use Threads to seek out research related to covid, something he says he does every day. “I was excited by search [on Threads],” he said. “When I typed in covid, I came up with no search results.”

Other public health workers criticized the company’s decision and said its timing was especially poor, given the current coronavirus uptick. Hospitalizations jumped nearly 16 percent in the United States last week and have been rising steadily since July, according to CDC data, though they remain less than what they were for the comparable week a year ago. Deaths are less than a quarter of what they were year to year, CDC statistics show.

(OP: Sorry, paywall, can't find another source yet. Someone got an archive?)

Users on TikTok searching for “WGA” are met with a screen claiming that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.” No videos return. Users are also unable to search for the “WGA” hashtag.

TikTok has also blocked the search term “WGA strike.”

Additionally, it appears that TikTok is blocking results from any simple search that includes “WGA” in the search term. Including “WGA” in addition to another word — like “WGA support” or “WGA strong” — blocks results.

Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” (WWG1WGA is a common QAnon phrase.) The spokesperson added that searches for “Writers Guild of America” and “Writers Guild of America Strike” were not impacted. Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

(Thanks mike591, SCB, crowsby, and others for putting in the comments)

Users on TikTok searching for “WGA” are met with a screen claiming that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.” No videos return. Users are also unable to search for the “WGA” hashtag.

TikTok has also blocked the search term “WGA strike.”

Additionally, it appears that TikTok is blocking results from any simple search that includes “WGA” in the search term. Including “WGA” in addition to another word — like “WGA support” or “WGA strong” — blocks results.

Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” (WWG1WGA is a common QAnon phrase.) The spokesperson added that searches for “Writers Guild of America” and “Writers Guild of America Strike” were not impacted. Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

(Thanks mike591, SCB, and others for putting in the comments)

Microsoft is done supporting the original Surface Duo, three years after it first launched on September 10. The company has stated from the very start that the Surface Duo would receive just three years of OS updates, meaning today is the last day that Microsoft has to stay true to its word.

Going forward, Microsoft will no longer ship new OS updates or security patches for the original Surface Duo, meaning Android 12L is the last version of the OS it will ever officially receive. Surface Duo only ever got two major OS updates, one shy of the average three that most high-end flagship Android devices get these days.

Rescue teams are working to extricate an American researcher after he suddenly fell ill while 3,000 feet deep inside a cave in Turkey.

Mark Dickey, 40, was on an expedition last week with his colleagues in the Morca cave, located in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, when he unexpectedly began vomiting due to stomach bleeding. He was unable to leave on his own, prompting the leaders of the expedition to seek international help, the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA) said in a statement released Thursday.

Recovery teams, doctors and paramedics came from across Europe to assist and extract Dickey, amassing to 190 people from 8 countries who have come to help the cave expert, according to The Associated Press.

California lawmakers on Thursday narrowly approved a bill supported by veterans and criminal justice reform advocates to decriminalize the possession and personal use of a limited list of natural psychedelics, including “magic mushrooms.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom will now decide the fate of Senate Bill 58, which would remove criminal penalties for the possession and use of psilocybin and psilocin, the active ingredients in psychedelic mushrooms, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, known as ayahuasca. The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.

Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg announced on Tuesday he was deactivating his X (formerly known as Twitter) account, saying Elon Musk’s takeover of the site turned it into a “cesspool.”

Mr Mossberg is a well-respected name and expert in the US tech writing industry, who also co-founded media sites such as Recode and AllThingsD. He announced his boycotting of X on Meta’s new platform Threads, saying his reasons revolve around business tycoon Mr Musk’s threats to sue the Anti-Defemation League (ADL).

First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday night, according to a statement. Jill Biden is experiencing mild symptoms and will stay at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., her commu…

The ACLU sued on behalf of drag performer Flamy Grant and Blount Pride after District Attorney General Ryan Desmond warned them of possible prosecution in a letter.

Even in conservative corners of Texas, efforts to crack down on abortion travel are meeting resistance with some local officials who support Texas’s strict abortion laws, expressing concern that the efforts go too far.

LLANO, Texas — No one could remember the last time so many people packed into City Hall.

As the meeting began on a late August evening, residents spilled out into the hallway, the brim of one cowboy hat kissing the next, each person jostling for a look at the five city council members who would decide whether to make Llano the third city in Texas to outlaw what some antiabortion activists call “abortion trafficking.”

For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.”

The cheers after each speech grew louder as the crowd readied for the vote. Then one woman on the council spoke up.

“I feel like there’s a lot more to discuss about this,” said Laura Almond, a staunch conservative who owns a consignment shop in the middle of town. “I have a ton of questions.”

More than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, many conservatives have grown frustrated by the number of people able to circumvent antiabortion laws — with some advocates grasping for even stricter measures they hope will fully eradicate abortion nationwide.

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Just after a judge granted an injunction against Texas’ adult content age verification law on 1st Amendment grounds, a judge in Arkansas did the same to that state’s social media age verification law. Trade organization NetChoice had challenged the law, and the court basically gave them a complete and total victory.

Just like the ruling in Texas, the opinion here is a good read. As with Texas, Arkansas relied on Tony Allen, who represents the age verification providers, to claim that the technology works great and the laws are fine. As in Texas, the court here is not convinced.

Also, as with Texas, the state in Arkansas had challenged the standing of the organization bringing the suit, and the court rejects that challenge. We’ll skip over the details because it’s just not that interesting. The important stuff is the 1st Amendment analysis.

First, the court looks to see if the law should be rejected on 1st Amendment grounds for being too vague (the Texas court talked about the vagueness issues, but didn’t rule on that point, only using the vague language to emphasize how the law was not narrowly tailored). Here, the court explains in detail how Arkansas’ law is way too vague:

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