### Issue 1683 - Wednesday 31st August, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Twitter's OnlyFans clone, Circles is out of beta, Elon Musk subpoenas whistleblower
- Tesla sued for "Sudden Unintended Braking Defect" aka phantom braking with adaptive cruise control
- California passes a hat trick of shitty internet laws
- Welcome to the Digital Museum of Plugs and Sockets
- Cheap PS5 controller batteries, Call of Duty/Diablo/StarCraft series games, Ring video doorbell, Sony earbuds, Elgato Stream Decks, Turing smart screen, Samsung 980 Pro SSD

## The News

### Twitter's OnlyFans clone, Circles is out of beta, Elon Musk subpoenas whistleblower

Lots of Twitter news around today:

- According to leaked internal documents, Twitter wanted to make its own version of OnlyFans. The plan died when its own investigation team determined in April that "Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale" and monetising adult content would make this problem even worse.
- Less disturbing news - Twitter Circles are now a thing. You can choose up to 150 people you follow to see tweets you create just for them. People in your Circle can't retweet these tweets, but nothing's stopping them being a dog and taking screenshots. Here's Twitter's documentation for Circles.
- As expected, Elon Musk has "formally added last week's whistleblower allegations against Twitter as a reason for terminating his $44bn takeover". His legal team has also "subpoenaed Zatko, meaning he will be required to supply evidence for a forthcoming trial about the deal termination, which is due to begin on 17 October".

### Tesla sued for "Sudden Unintended Braking Defect" aka phantom braking with adaptive cruise control

Tesla is facing a class action lawsuit in the USA for "phantom braking", more technically referred to as "Sudden Unintended Braking Defect". This has happened to me maybe half a dozen times in the 2 years I've owned a Model 3. I'm on the highway with cruise control enabled and all of a sudden my overpriced battery on wheels, filled to the brim with sensors and computers, gets spooked by a virtual ghost, slamming on the brakes and scaring the shit out of me, my passengers and cars near me on the road. Other adaptive cruise control setups have similar issues, but Tesla's is by far the worst in my experience. The NHTSA is also investigating this problem.

### California passes a hat trick of shitty internet laws

The Californian Senate has passed, as TechDirt call them "some horribly dangerous" tech related bills that are likely to be rubber stamped by the Governor soon:

- AB 2273, aka "Age Appropriate Design Code". Which was "written in part by a UK Baroness with ties to Hollywood" that'll make online services "consider the best interests of children when designing, developing, and providing that service, product, or feature". Whatever the fuck that means.
- AB 587, aka "Content Moderation Requirements for Internet Terms of Service". This one is designed to give extreme levels of detail to governments about how social media services are moderated, so the government can then publish it, giving creeps, weirdos and spammers a guidebook to work around moderation policies.
- AB 2879, aka "Cyberbulling". They've copied similar laws in Florida and Texas (bastions of good internet policy) that require companies to produce "cyberbullying reports" and forces schools to report any instances of cyberbullying to the social media platform, with substantial fines for the platform if they don't take it down.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Welcome to the Digital Museum of Plugs and Sockets

I invite you to browse the virtual halls of the Digital Museum of Plugs and Sockets. Click around the map to see domestic power outlets and plugs from around the world. There's extension cords, power boards and double adapters too. I knew different countries used different plugs, but who knew there's so goddamn many??? This is what the internet is all about! Extremely detailed information about a very niche topic. The museum has a sub-section for heavy duty plugs if you want to go even deeper into this rabbit hole.

## Bargains

- PS5 Controller Battery Pack 1500mAh - $5 at Kmart
- A bunch of Call of Duty, Diablo and StarCraft PC games are on sale at Battle.net
- Ring Video Doorbell 4 & Chime - $289 from Ring
- Sony WF-1000XM4 wireless earbuds - $295.03 from Amazon
- Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 White - $209 from Amazon
- Corsair Elgato Stream Deck XL 32 LCD Keys - $292.78 from Amazon UK
- Turing Smart Screen 3.5" IPS Type-C Display - $30 from GeekBuying
- Samsung 980 Pro 1TB/2TB M.2 NVMe SSD with Heatsink (suitable for PS5) - $157.75/$294.26 from Amazon UK

## The End

📻 I'm So Bored With The USA - The Clash

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