The legislators themselves don’t know yet what bill the language will be slipped into, but we expect they’ll hear it next week, possibly as early as Monday, April 24.
What To Do:
They’re moving fast, so if you live in Indiana and feel strongly about libraries and censorship, please call your reps and senators NOW. Even if you already contacted them earlier this session!
Here are some talking points and the general gist of our concerns:
Charging librarians and educators with felonies is not an appropriate response to the issue of challenging books.
It is a librarian or educator’s job to ensure that children have access to a range of well-reviewed quality books. They are trained and follow objective processes for material selection.
Libraries and schools already have processes in place for challenging books on their shelves, and these processes work.
A Texas man is suing three women who he claims assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy under the state’s wrongful death statute, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.
Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former solicitor general of Texas and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives.
Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy.
Perfect example of how anti-choice laws enable abusive spouses. If you live in a state with similar laws, do NOT have these conversations over insecure apps or text messages. Communicate face-to-face privately as much as possible, use secure apps with end-to-end encryption when you can’t, and consider using burner phones if necessary.
if you are in a conversation with a pro-life acquaintance or family member, here’s a great example of how anti-abortion laws can help trap people in potentially abusive situations
I think this is also a good time to remind people about Jury Nullification. That is when a jury returns a not guilty verdict regardless of whether they think the defendant broke the law or not. It is a form of protest that is typically used when the jurors think the law is unjust or the punishment for the crime is too harsh.
It’s not commonly used, but it is perfectly legal due to the fact that a jury cannot be held responsible for an incorrect verdict and a defendant who is acquitted cannot be tried for the same crime twice. Just because it’s a crime doesn’t mean the person on trial did anything wrong.
Here are the basic facts: Pluto TV is a free streaming service that allows you to watch content without registering for an account. Its model is based on making money via ads and the now-ubiquitous collection of user data. While Pluto TV has its own app, it does not encrypt its streams and each show and movie on the service has a findable M3U link. Those links allow other apps to play the streams but, importantly, there is no downloading going on. The links direct to local files and web sources.
As a result, someone was able to make a playlist of Pluto TV links. That playlist allowed users to watch Pluto TV links—with the ads intact—on apps other than Pluto TV’s. The same way you can play a DVD on any player or watch a channel on any TV. All this playlist did was gather publicly available information in one place in a specific order.
The playlists created were then made available in a GitHub repo, which is where the MPA directed their DMCA takedown request. Because the links as compiled were… infringement…somehow.
It isn’t. The information was publicly available from Pluto TV, which has a legal right to broadcast it. Watching the streams via the links on other apps didn’t even remove the ads, so it seems that the theory here is basically that the loss of tracking data is infringement. So privacy is piracy? Even if that isn’t the argument, that’s certainly the effect of this belief.
Using the DMCA in this matter isn’t about infringement. It’s about control. Major rightsholders don’t want you in control of how you consume their media. They want it themselves, so they can nickel and dime every step of the process. Even their “free” content.
IP/anti-infringement is also about control in the same awful way… but yeah… DMCA needs more accessible abuse protections at the very least
in light of the exposed emails about the media obsession with transphobia being a manufactured moral panic to increase conservative votes id like to remind you that we’ve been saying for years that the right will try to divide and conquer the queer community. and you are a traitor if you are a cis LGB person who let the right sucker you into transphobia and voting for politicians who will put laws in against us. they will come for you next.
I figure in honor of the dearly departed Vine (RIP) I’d make some compilations (like the ones I did for Vine back in the day) of Tiktoks that fill that void in my soul.
Hopefully more to come and this is a Vol. 1 of sorts.
It’s about damn time these fuckers learned that they don’t get just parade around in their faux gestapo getups without someone showing them what’s what.
It’s amazing how quickly these wannabe tough guy fascists turn into sniveling snowflakes as soon as they are met with even a little resistance.
“I thought I could come in and harass queers and threaten to kill them in peace!”
You really thought people were going to just let you come in and spout your hateful nonsense without any backlash? The audacity! That’s a lifetime of unchecked privilege at play. I’m sometimes afraid to even leave my house while existing as a trans woman, and you thought you could just gamet away with this?
Talk shit, get hit.
Idk man I think when you’re dealing with Nazis maybe violence is the answer
i can’t remember who said it but i think this is summed up well by “tolerance is a social contract and covers only those who abide by it”
About ten days ago, I wrote a seriesofposts regarding the difficulties Jews and people of other minority faiths encounter in western society when it comes to having our holidays respected and recognized. I got a lot of feedback from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, etc. echoing my sentiments (some of which was absolutely heartbreaking), and I have additionally seen a variety of otherposts on the matter that underline my point. When reading all of the notes and comments relevant to these posts, I noticed a very similar theme reappearing time after time:
“I didn’t take off for X holiday because I’m not that religious, but the scheduling was very inconvenient for my more observant friend or family member.”
Indeed, I had previously quoted former MLB player Gabe Kapler, who once made the justification to play baseball on Yom Kippur by saying:
“I am not really a practicing Jew. It would be selfish to be a practicing Jew on only one day.”
It would seem that many people have been led to believe that observing a Jewish or Muslim or Hindu holiday is cheating unless you are sincerely devout.
Well, I have a special message for those people:
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES
This is important, so I’m going to say it again:
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES
Think of all the times you have been chided by secular Christian friends for not celebrating Christmas.
“It’s not really even a religious holiday anymore,” people will tell you. “It’s just a nice time for families to get together and celebrate.”
Well, guess what? So is Rosh Hashanah. So is Eid. So is Diwali.
A secular Jew might not want to go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to fly home for Rosh Hashanah dinner to be with their family.
A non-practicing Muslim may have lost interest in regular religious practices, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still look forward to Eid celebrations.
A lapsed Hindu can still have fond memories of celebrating Diwali as a youth, and want to continue on with their family traditions.
There is no written rule that says only people from Christian backgrounds can be non-religious and still celebrate their cultural holidays. There is no law that says only Christmas and Easter can be boiled down to family dinners and fun festivities.
BEING A SECULAR PERSON FROM A MINORITY FAITH DOES NOT INVALIDATE YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR OWN CULTURAL BACKGROUND.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t prayed in years or don’t believe in God. If you want a day off for your holiday, take it. No matter what, it’s still yours.
