this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Let me break this down:

Openly defying court orders multiple times= dictatorship Threatening to jail political opponents despite them being pardoned= dictatorship Deporting American citizens who have legal citizenship= dictatorship Can’t put it any simpler.

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Court decisions are just optional now. Who needs a court when you are judge and jury?

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 56 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Among other terrible things, this is exactly why Google shoving Android "SafetyCore" onto all Android phones is absolutely evil. Illegal phone searches become a casual click on a cloud interface to target millions with whatever they want to find.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 20 points 1 day ago (6 children)

good thing we can delete that, i deleted that app as soon as i saw the post, but i heard it comes back everytime it updates. and im pretty sure google will make that a permanent thing down the line. (probably againt pixel phones)

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[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you have any evidence pointing at that? So far it seems SafetyCore is a local-only service that despite all the uproar no researchers actually found doing anything suspicious.

And the only thing I hate more than Google is misinformation and fearmongering.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 day ago

Yeah, the Internet really went paranoid with it, which doesn't help that it is still evil, but in a different way. Also, never feel safe by something called "local-only" as it can process on device and still fire a yes/no bit to the cloud. At its core, SafetyCore is pretty innocuous. It's a tiny ML model interface that other applications can query to search for targeted images. Its primary purpose is to look for things like CSAM and NSFW images, apps can query the interface to check if an image is naughty and send back basically a boolean yes/no. One of their selling points is "no more dick pics in your SMS!" There's also an ML library in the camera software that, for years, has known about looking at all sorts of things and identifying what they are, cat, dog, brown person, truck, sign.

Google can push software onto Android phones whenever they want, this is widely know, and SafetyCore was actually pushed in that fashion. Apple can too, to be fair. On some level, there's pretty much no reason to have any trust of your mobile device anymore when the vendor can change it whenever they want without consent, but I digress.

Now, tying it all together: the phone contains a "safety" ML model (SafetyCore) that can detect types of image and relay a yes/no, and a camera ML model that knows what most of our known universe looks like for the purpose of running the camera. The latter is likely not even needed, given the former was pushed without consent and could be updated by the same consentless mechanism.

The tl;dr boils down to: Google can push a query to phones to respond if they have a type of image. That type of image could be heavily illegal or terrible activity. It could also be anything the government in control wants to find. Picture of Tiananmen Square, sure. Protest signs, sure. How many phones have recent pictures of certain skin-colored people in a given square mile? Sure.

Unfortunately not direct evidence in this closed-source future, only extrapolation potential based on available evidence and how software works, and how companies like money.

There are some things our machines should just not do. The biggest weakness in this part of history. 25 years ago, tech evolution was limited by what computers could do. Tech evolution doesn't have that safety baked in anymore, your phone could run for weeks "turned off" recording everything you say and transpose it to a text file in the bootloader or a secondary controller chip and you'd never know. Your phone's battery life could be limited because every camera and microphone periodically fires to store data for later upload. The dead-reckoning sensors in the health tracking portion (the M-series coprocessors in iPhones, for example) could track your movement in a cave for miles (airplanes used to use this same tech for navigation across the planet.) Your camera's wide-angle lens could identify everyone at your dinner table when you set it face down on the table because cell service is never good enough to leave a phone in your pocket anymore but you don't want to disturb the meal with your entire screen turning on every 5 seconds.

We now have to consciously choose what our machines do because they can do anything they want, but we haven't chosen. The blind trust has run on for too long.

Secondary tl;dr: the software is there, just assume evil intent possibility. Google, in specific, chose this time to push an image identification application to phones without consent in a time where the planet's freedom is collectively dying. Hopefully it's just a marketing faux pas...

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 251 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (14 children)

This is happening again and again: judges rule that deportations are illegal, then Trump's people just kidnap the victim and deport them anyway. A whole lot of people were just deported to a prison in a foreign country whose government has said they will never be released. They will be slave labor for a foreign country until they die, and there was no trial, no due process, no evidence presented for their being guilty of any crime. It's just the US government kidnapping people and trafficking them into slavery abroad, completely ignoring its own judicial system. The USA is already a dictatorship, and it only took a few weeks.

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

And if anyone doing these illegal deportations is tried, and even convicted, the president can just pardon them.

Presidential pardons are dumb and were always waiting to be abused, change my mind.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Yes, it seems like for all the USA's supposed opposition to kings, they just had to make the President the closest possible thing to an all-powerful king. Whereas countries with parliamentary systems and a Prime Minister don't have this problem, even when they technically have an actual king.

[–] NJSpradlin@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean, decades of sowing the seeds but a few weeks since they were able to solidify their power. I don’t think that’s unusual, seeing how quickly Germany fell to the Nazis.

[–] sloppysol@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Unusual maybe, but I wish it wasn’t so easy to accept it as just another part of history. I hoped we were better than this with all the new tech, but I guess old habits die hard. The new tech just seems to be a new tool they’ve been getting the hang of, and AI makes the dumbest sound less dumb to the ridiculously ignorant by choice. By so many choices I can’t fathom.

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[–] LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It’s time for armed resistance

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If these unjust and illegal actions can't be stopped through elections, politicians or courts, it does seem the only ways to stop them would involve physically obstructing them.

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Though the Trump administration did not initially detail their rationale for detaining Alawieh, Hilton Beckham, the assistant commissioner of public affairs for Customs and Border Protection, told HuffPost that "arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility to the United States.”

Which a valid visa is literally proof of, you ridiculously named fascist henchcritter! 🤦🤬

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bend It (Reality) Like Beckham

Also, Hilton is right up there with Reginald or Mildred when it comes to "blindingly white old money" names 😄

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 20 points 1 day ago

Well obviously it's because they were Brown

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 118 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Hey where was the motherfucker arguing they wouldnt deport legal people with me here? Huh? Where ya at?

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 73 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They literally don't care. All they want is to win an argument against leftists in the moment; they actually see it as a weakness to be beholden to facts.

They're playing a different "game" entirely, one where rhetoric is more important than reality.

[–] madeinthebackseat@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This point should be understood by all - they're programmed to get a dopamine hit in the moment by pissing you off.

They're not arguing in good faith and all the time you spend making rational statements is a waste. Nobody is keeping a scorecard that punishes them for losing an intellectual discussion.

The opposition to MAGA has to find a new path, because applying rational arguments in discussions ain't going to work.

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is why calling them weird was sort of effective. It's not a fact, it's an opinion. Now, I think it's a widely held opinion, but the point is it wasn't something they could argue with. It was sort of playing the game they've been playing.

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[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They're at the other goalpost, we just don't know where it's been moved right now

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[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 86 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I hope Trump's Supreme Court are happy residing over a branch of government that no longer matters.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 33 points 2 days ago

As long as the vacations and RVs keep coming, you bet they are.

[–] Crikeste@lemm.ee 14 points 1 day ago

They made it so, why wouldn’t they be happy?

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[–] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 65 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If only we could have foreseen this and prevented it somehow

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago

Unfortunately close to half the US wants it to happen, or were OK with a president who announced that it was his plan. This is who the US is now.

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[–] BlitzFitz@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

Constitutional crisis time! Who's ready to defend their rights and fight for democracy!

[–] Crikeste@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Most of America has work tomorrow, sorry.

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[–] imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee 52 points 2 days ago (11 children)

This is getting uglier. Ugh

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[–] iarigby@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If anyone wants context for why she was denied entry, apart from photos supportive of terrorists found on the phone

The doctor also reportedly told agents that she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah while in Lebanon, but that she supported him “from a religious perspective” and not a political one.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

The article says that Customs and Border Patrol agents "found “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in the deleted items folder of her cellphone."

That statement is vague enough in itself (could be memes from a group chat, could be something someone shared in a whatsapp chat that she had no interest in - we don't know). What we do know is that having pictures sympathetic to Hezbollah figures on your phone is not illegal, and it doesn't automatically equate to 'being supportive of terrorists'. I have photos of Trump in my phone from group chats and from web cache of viewed articles, and I hate the treasonous c*nt.

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[–] Shameless@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Deporting doctors, unbelievable.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Everything they do suggests the goal is just to ruin the USA and its (former) allies.

[–] GuyFawkes@midwest.social 36 points 2 days ago (13 children)

So what are we gonna do about it?

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[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 28 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Whoever ignored that order should be held in contempt. You don't just "whoopsie" a judge's order.

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