News bits: Dark free speech update; Forcing a bit of climate transparency; Etc.

Deutsche Welle writes about the degradation of Musk's Xitter into a crackpot authoritarian hellscape in Germany:

German anti-racism body leaves X over 'rise in hate speech'

A German agency that tackles discrimination and racism says it is quitting the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. It cited a rise in hate speech since owner Elon Musk took over last year

Mozilla, the company that owns Firefox, acquired Fakespot in May. Fakespot, a startup that helps users identify fake news through a website and a browser extension, has been used to spot fake reviews on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Walmart, and eBay using an A-to-F scale.

Fakespot's Review Checker is scheduled to be released on Firefox version 120 for desktop and Android on November 21, 2023, according to MS Power User.

This is terrible news for folks who plan to use AI technologies, particularly generative AI tools like ChatGPT, to flood product reviews. Fakespot could make that task much more difficult by using its own AI to spot the fake product reviews.

Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifah told Axios at the time of the acquisition that reviews are important for the online shopping experience because "you can’t touch the product," he said. "You really need the reviews."

I was wondering if and when AI would start to be used to fight lies, deceit, slanders and crackpottery. It's about freaking time. Maybe it's about freaking time for me to stop using rotted Chrome and move back to Firefox.

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The Conversation writes: 

Exxon, Apple and other corporate giants will have to disclose all their emissions 

under California’s new climate laws – that will have a global impact

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new rules into law on Oct. 7, 2023. Under the new Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, U.S.- companies with annual revenues of US$1 billion or more will have to report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2026 and 2027. The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the regulation, arguing it would increase companies’ costs. But more than a dozen major corporations endorsed the rule, including Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce and Patagonia.

The second law, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, requires companies generating $500 million or more to report their financial risks related to climate change and their plans for risk mitigation. 

While California isn’t the first place to mandate climate disclosures, it is the fifth-largest economy in the world. So, the state’s new laws are poised to have substantial influence worldwide. Subsidiaries of companies that didn’t have to report their emissions before will now be subject to disclosure requirements. California is in effect exercising its immense market leverage to establish climate disclosures as standard practice in the U.S. and beyond.

That's what pro-public interest governance can look like. If the kleptocratic, authoritarian radical right, plutocratic, theocratic (KARRPT) Republican Party gets its way, its KARRPT USSC will hold laws like this to be unconstitutional. That day is probably coming.

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6 GOP lawmakers want to expel scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos. Hm, Santos is the essence of corrupt radical right GOP authoritarianism. They should be expelling themselves.

Routine radical right hypocrisy: President Biden’s reelection campaign bashed presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for touting drug prices caps for seniors after voting against the Inflation Reduction Act. In a video first shared with The Hill, the campaign mashed up clips of Scott celebrating capping costs for seniors and saying that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Scott voted against, should be eliminated.

Brazen, insulting legal weaseling: Trump tells court he had no duty to 'support' the Constitution as president -- Former President Donald Trump is arguing to a judge in Colorado that he was not required to "support" the Constitution as president, reported Brandi Buchman from Law & Crime. .... Trump's attorneys argue: "The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution — not to 'support' the Constitution," said the filing by Trump's attorneys. "Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."