### Issue 1569 - Friday 18th March, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- ACCC taking Facebook to court over dodgy celebrity cryptocurrency scam ads
- UK's Online Safety Bill is full of save the children nonsense made by pea-brain politicians
- NSW's iVote system is so bad they've had to invalidate 3 local council results
- First Mac Studio & Studio Display reviews are out and about
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Sennheiser headphones, Hoyts movie tickets, Hades for Switch, LG 77" OLED TV, GL.iNet travel router, Dell 27" monitor, 5% off JB store-wide mostly

## The News

### ACCC taking Facebook to court over dodgy celebrity cryptocurrency scam ads

The ACCC is taking Meta/Facebook to court over those ridiculous ads that say a celebrity is into cryptocurrency, so therefore you should also get into cryptocurrency. The ACCC reckons "Meta was aware that the celebrity endorsement cryptocurrency scam ads were being displayed on Facebook but did not take sufficient steps to address the issue", even after "public figures around the world had complained that their names and images had been used in similar ads without their consent". Apparently the ACCC has evidence that one user lost $650,000 because of these scams (lol).

### UK's Online Safety Bill is full of save the children nonsense made by pea-brain politicians

The UK has unleashed their own Online Safety Bill and the poms managed to make one worse than ours. The most contentious part of the bill is forcing moderation of a vague "legal but harmful" content class that could cause "adverse physical or psychological impact". Tech companies (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc) are to "reduce users' exposure to this content" in an "accurate and timely manner" or "senior managers will be liable for criminal prosecution". You just know they're gonna go over the top with censorship so there's no edge cases of "legal but harmful" content lying around that leave the bosses open to going to jail.

### NSW's iVote system is so bad they've had to invalidate 3 local council results

Three NSW local council election results (Kempsey, Singleton and Shellharbour Ward A) have been thrown out by the Supreme Court due to a fuckup with iVote. iVote is used in NSW for absentee voting via the internet and during the local council election in December 2021, totally shit the bed, resulting in people unable to cast their vote through no fault of their own. Now those three local councils will have another vote - without iVote's involvement. What sucks most about this is that the NSW electoral commission asked for the government for funds to fix this, but was knocked back, while at the same time the government was harping on about the potential for iVote to be available for everyone to vote, not just absentees.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### First Mac Studio & Studio Display reviews are out and about

Reviews of Apple's Mac Studio and Studio Display (by Apple's hand-picked reviewers) are now live. They all love the Mac Studio. It's very fast, has the ports people want, runs cool and doesn't make a lot of noise. The M1 Ultra Mac Studio is faster in every single way than the current Intel Mac Pro and costs half as much. Apple's claims the GPU is faster than an RTX3090 are A-grade bullshit however. It might be more performant per watt, but the RTX3090 has way more grunt overall. Regarding the Studio Display, reviewers like everything about it except the built-in camera. It sucks, big time. Apple reckon it's a bug and will release a software update. Old mate Gruber discovered that the monitor runs iOS 15.4, same build number (19E241) as the OS running on iPhones and iPads.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- 78z is getting a motorbike licence and wants to know what others suggest they get as a first bike
- The_Hawk starts a discussion about Optus' brainfart of wanting government to regulate over the top services using too much bandwidth
- andyb has given us updates on their Cochlear hearing implant journey
- andrewh reminisces about naughty stuff we did with the school computers
- LilSizzle wants to record a phone call (and has consent to do so) but isn't sure how do it

## Bargains

- 5% off most things (no Apple gear for example) at JB Hi-Fi's online store
- Sennheiser HD 458BT noise cancelling wireless headphones - $119 + delivery from MyDeal
- Hoyts: Adult Tickets - $8.99 from ShopBack
- Hades for Nintendo Switch - $24.37 on the eShop
- LG C1 77" OLED77C1PTB 4K TV - $4930 from Appliance Central
- GL.inet GL-SFT1200 travel router with wi-fi - $59.42 from Amazon
- Dell S2721DGF 27" 1440p 165Hz IPS Monitor - $429 from Dell's eBay store with Afterpay

## The End

📻 Satanic Slumber Party Part 2 (Midnight In Sodom) - Tropical Fuck Storm & King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.