A French draft law, passed Monday, would let citizens vote in local elections after 10 years' residency in New Caledonia, prompting opposition from independence activists worried it will dilute the representation of indigenous people. The violent demonstrations that have ensued in the South Pacific island of 270,000 have killed at least five people and injured hundreds.
In response to the protests, the government suspended the popular video-sharing app — owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and favored by young people — as part of state-of-emergency measures alongside the deployment of troops and an initial 12-day curfew.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal didn’t detail the reasons for shutting down the platform. The local telecom regulator began blocking the app earlier on Wednesday."
In this one, we have #Firefox adding some data collection (but it's fine, IMO), we have a ton of stuff happening around AI, and it's still an absolute nightmare, we have the Linux Kernel 6.9 (nice), and #France banning #TikTok in one of its territories, which alarmed a bunch of human rights / freedom associations:
“Facts are irrelevant to the truth of the experience OpenAI sells, which is grounded in the fantasy of having someone you can always talk to and boss around without having to worry about managing their performance. The chatbot performs “assistance” in a way that makes its actually doing anything more and more beside the point” https://robhorning.substack.com/p/empires-of-modern-passivity
@FrankPasquale Thank you for the link. A very interesting read about #TikTok, #OpenAI and the #Instagramization of life. I like "experience of parasociality" as a description of this "society of the spectacle". In the future, we will have even greater problems with loneliness.
Kanaks (the indigenous peoples of New Caledonia) are revolting against French colonialism, and the French govt is blocking access to tiktok in an attempt to stop them organising and posting about what's happening.
"Why did France ban TikTok?
As we mentioned, France gave an order to block access to TikTok across the island as part of a state of emergency declaration. Other measures also include the deployment of French troops to secure ports and international airports, alongside a national curfew.
This harsh response came as a reaction to three days of violent clashes that left four dead (including a French gendarme) and hundreds wounded. As Politico reported, protests erupted as French lawmakers passed a bill to change the voting system by allowing all citizens residing on the island for more than 10 years to vote in local elections. New Caledonia's indigenous population, the Kanaks, believes this law will ultimately weaken their representation."
> En ce qui concerne le blocage d'un service de communication au public en ligne de type TikTok, il est exigé qu'un lien soit fait avec le terrorisme, soit par les actes, soit par l'apologie. Il est aujourd'hui difficile d'établir ce lien. Le gouvernement semble s'être octroyé une petite extension de pouvoir, en interprétant les textes légaux.