Interesting Links for 16-06-2023

[andrewducker]

1. I have watched this terribly cute video about 15 times and it never fails to make me grin

(tags:funny cute hats video )

2. Abortion clinic 'buffer zone' bill lodged in Scottish Parliament

(tags:scotland abortion protests GoodNews )

3. AO3 is diverging badly from basic, fundamental Trust and Safety best practices

(tags:safety internet abuse OhForFucksSake )

4. UK time trial cycling excludes over 10% of elite female cyclists for having too much testosterone

(tags:testosterone OhForFucksSake women cycling UK sports )

5. Daily Mail hires liar as new columnist

(tags:DailyMail BorisJohnson lying )

6. 'Synthetic' human embryos created without eggs or sperm

(tags:life research ArtificialLife )

7. Google made millions from ads for "crisis pregnancy centers" that work to prevent women from accessing abortions.

(tags:abortion advertising google OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[simont]

#5: "Famed as one of the [...] most original writers in the business".

In this context, "original" is a Yes, Minister style euphemism for "liar", isn't it? "Makes things up rather than sticking to the facts."

[andrewducker]

I'd imagine so, yes.

[anna_wing]

I consider AO3 to be doing what it's supposed to be doing, which is provide a universal archive of fanfiction. I don't object to better moderation of interactions among users, to allow more blocking or filtering of people or fics But I would never support the banning of fics just because someone doesn't like them or their authors, which is the logical end-point of these demands. AO3 is an archive, not a social media platform. Don't like, don't read.

[andrewducker]

This is about the safety and well-being of the moderation team.

[calimac]

Is it? The author is (perhaps understandably) so upset that I can't figure out exactly what it's about.

[andrewducker]

From the article, but with a bunch of other stuff around it that I totally understand makes it unclear:

" threats to expose OTW volunteer information, including emails, pseuds, and wallet names when people had made them available or where they were discoverable, to groups such as Kiwi Farms, 4chan, and QAnon. These groups very, very frequently use SWATting tactics, in which they utilize TDD relay and other phone spoofing tactics to appear to be coming from a local phone number and pretend to be a resident at someone's address in the middle of a violent and dangerous situation. The police, believing the inhabitants of the address to be under threat, dispatch the SWAT team to invade the home"

[snippy]

Someone has sent the volunteer mods CSAM, and is now threatening to reveal their contact info and perhaps take other actions against them.

[bens_dad]

IIUC the author is Denise, who runs and co-owns Dream Width.

[liv]

It's not about banning fics. It's about taking measures to prevent malicious actors from emailing volunteers with child porn images (literal, extremely illegal child porn, not fanfiction about underage protagonists), and "SWATing" them ie making hoax calls so that armed police invade someone's home. That's what AO3 is failing to deal with. Those attacks are actually causing serious harm to volunteers, so the excuse that it's just a fanfiction archive and it's not their job to protect people isn't applicable here.

4.

[channelpenguin]

Fun fact. Testosterone is MORE abundant in the (cis)('normally' functioning) female body than either oestrogen or progesterone.

Also - very very silly rules. :-(

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you for the hats! Bahahahahah!

All at sixes and sevens

[hairyears]

(7) This is 'just' another milestone on a road paved with moral millstones: I wonder who is left at Google, who joined believing "Don't be evil".

(6) The gameteless creation of an embryo is worrying for ethical reasons: but it's a logical expression of our increasing sophistication in manipulating the developmental pathway of an embryonic stem cell. And, I would assume, in reverting the stem cells of an adult into pluripotence, and further back into the embryonic state.

I'm not sure how far the research team have actually gone, though: the Independent article is full of 'might' and 'could be' and 'potentially used for'...

Can someone get at the actual publications?

And... It's an English newspaper: could this be a rehashed 'talking points' piece from fundamentalists stirring-up a campaign against embryology and developmental biology?

Re: All at sixes and sevens

[andrewducker]

It's not yet published, I believe.

Re: All at sixes and sevens

[andrewducker]

"Prof Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, described the work on Wednesday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston"

That doesn't sound like fundamentalists to me.

[bens_dad]

4 Will they allow a woman with a high T-level to compete with the men ?