autonomousPunk

joined 1 month ago
 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1306984

Yes, it is batshit crazy that this happened, and that municipalities actually stripped people of Belgian nationality that they already acquired.

Even more puzzling is how flimsy Belgian nationality is -- that you can lose Belgian nationality so easily and without even any kind of wrong-doing.

The Federal Ombudsman says the “Immigration Office is exceeding its powers.” But AFAICT the immigration office is just making a request -- one that can and should be ignored.

Very bizarre that the municipality has these powers. Sure, the muni has the power to grant nationality. Fair enough. But I find it a bit disturbing that the muni has power to strip nationality. Such a serious assault on someone’s human right to self-determinism should be a federal procedure, no?

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1306984

Yes, it is batshit crazy that this happened, and that municipalities actually stripped people of Belgian nationality that they already acquired.

Even more puzzling is how flimsy Belgian nationality is -- that you can lose Belgian nationality so easily and without even any kind of wrong-doing.

The Federal Ombudsman says the “Immigration Office is exceeding its powers.” But AFAICT the immigration office is just making a request -- one that can and should be ignored.

Very bizarre that the municipality has these powers. Sure, the muni has the power to grant nationality. Fair enough. But I find it a bit disturbing that the muni has power to strip nationality. Such a serious assault on someone’s human right to self-determinism should be a federal procedure, no?

 

Yes, it is batshit crazy that this happened, and that municipalities actually stripped people of Belgian nationality that they already acquired.

Even more puzzling is how flimsy Belgian nationality is -- that you can lose Belgian nationality so easily and without even any kind of wrong-doing.

The Federal Ombudsman says the “Immigration Office is exceeding its powers.” But AFAICT the immigration office is just making a request -- one that can and should be ignored.

Very bizarre that the municipality has these powers. Sure, the muni has the power to grant nationality. Fair enough. But I find it a bit disturbing that the muni has power to strip nationality. Such a serious assault on someone’s human right to self-determinism should be a federal procedure, no?

 

The 1st paragraph, if the JavaScript does not block you:

“Equality mainstreaming aims to ensure that policies, laws, programmes and other activities are designed and implemented to benefit all and remove barriers that prevent disadvantaged groups from enjoying the same rights, opportunities and benefits as the rest of society. The ultimate objective of equality mainstreaming is to achieve equality.”

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1289387

It’s sickening enough that they use Twitter without so much as a free-world mirror. Even more in our faces when the DG MOVE (the commission’s transport branch) repeatedly references Twitter in their biennial report (linked). Note as well that the report itself is exclusively reachable only to clearnet users. Everyone else must rely on archive.org for a copy.

Sample paragraph:

“All of these key developments were accompanied by external communication activities, in particular via DG MOVE’s X account, newsletter and website, with the aim to reach relevant stakeholders and multipliers. Under objective 3, these activities focused in particular on the revised TEN-T regulation, which reached a very high number of stakeholders and citizens on social media (274900 impressions on DG MOVE’s social media alone), the Passenger Mobility Package and its new online communication campaign for 2023-2024, to raise awareness of about EU passenger rights.”

In other words, if you want to be kept informed about your EU passenger rights, then lick Elon’s boots. We need to get to a point where licking Elon’s boots is an embarrassment. They are proudly counting the numbers of people they reach. We need to get them to count people who are excluded (as Mastodon excludes no one).

The EU has an unmonitored non-interactive Mastodon account, but that only mirrors general EU content, not DG NOVE specifically.

Also w.r.t. transparency, there is this:

“Digital Culture, and in particular Collaboration and communication was further improved by the migration to SharePoint online.”

Sharepoint is Microsoft garbage that is not open to public access.

Regarding the question of legality-- the EU has open data laws, which IIUC entails making publications accessible to everyone. I suppose I need to get to the bottom of that but my suspicion is that publishing something exclusively on Twitter and thus blocking all who don’t lick Elon’s boots is illegal. Otherwise, it certainly should be illegal.

 

It’s sickening enough that they use Twitter without so much as a free-world mirror. Even more in our faces when the DG MOVE (the commission’s transport branch) repeatedly references Twitter in their biennial report (linked). Note as well that the report itself is exclusively reachable only to clearnet users. Everyone else must rely on archive.org for a copy.

Sample paragraph:

“All of these key developments were accompanied by external communication activities, in particular via DG MOVE’s X account, newsletter and website, with the aim to reach relevant stakeholders and multipliers. Under objective 3, these activities focused in particular on the revised TEN-T regulation, which reached a very high number of stakeholders and citizens on social media (274900 impressions on DG MOVE’s social media alone), the Passenger Mobility Package and its new online communication campaign for 2023-2024, to raise awareness of about EU passenger rights.”

In other words, if you want to be kept informed about your EU passenger rights, then lick Elon’s boots. We need to get to a point where licking Elon’s boots is an embarrassment. They are proudly counting the numbers of people they reach. We need to get them to count people who are excluded (as Mastodon excludes no one).

The EU has an unmonitored non-interactive Mastodon account, but that only mirrors general EU content, not DG NOVE specifically.

Also w.r.t. transparency, there is this:

“Digital Culture, and in particular Collaboration and communication was further improved by the migration to SharePoint online.”

Sharepoint is Microsoft garbage that is not open to public access.

Regarding the question of legality-- the EU has open data laws, which IIUC entails making publications accessible to everyone. I suppose I need to get to the bottom of that but my suspicion is that publishing something exclusively on Twitter and thus blocking all who don’t lick Elon’s boots is illegal. Otherwise, it certainly should be illegal.

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1289285

I think I may have found a gem here:

EN (machine translation, emphasis mine):

Article 3/5.[¹ The communication of federal administrative authorities is clear and recognizable. Federal administrative bodies communicate in a politically and commercially neutral manner. The obligation to communicate in a politically neutral manner shall not apply to the administrative bodies referred to in the second paragraph of Article 1(f). ]¹

What about that exception? We have:

1°[¹ administrative instance:

(f) the federal government's strategic bodies referred to in the Royal Decree of 19 July 2001 on the installation of the federal public services strategic bodies and relating to the personnel of the federal public services designated to form part of the cabinet of a member of a government or a college of a Community or Region; ]¹

I’m not going on a chase to dig that up. But I would like to know if this means all “SPF …” agencies (SPF Economy, SPF Mobility, SPF Finances, SPF Foreign Afairs, etc) are exempt from commercial neutrality.

I also wonder if this apparently accidental legal effect is also accidentally nullified by this clause:

Art. 9. Where the application for advertising relates to an administrative document of an administrative [¹ instance]¹ [² ...]² including a work protected by copyright, the authorization of the author or of the person to whom the rights of the author were transferred is not required to authorize the on-site consultation of the document or to provide explanations about it.

Because I suspect that shitty corps like Facebook have a clause that transfers copyright to Facebook, in which case a request to liberate FB publications by a public service can be brushed off. But then that raises another question. In Belgium, copyright holders cannot transfer their copyright (which is actually to protect the human creator). E.g. the creator of the Smurfs cartoon retains copyright ownership. But then if my understanding is true, does that mean Belgian law is catoring just for the corner case of copyright being transferred outside of Belgium?

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1289285

I think I may have found a gem here:

EN (machine translation, emphasis mine):

Article 3/5.[¹ The communication of federal administrative authorities is clear and recognizable. Federal administrative bodies communicate in a politically and commercially neutral manner. The obligation to communicate in a politically neutral manner shall not apply to the administrative bodies referred to in the second paragraph of Article 1(f). ]¹

What about that exception? We have:

1°[¹ administrative instance:

(f) the federal government's strategic bodies referred to in the Royal Decree of 19 July 2001 on the installation of the federal public services strategic bodies and relating to the personnel of the federal public services designated to form part of the cabinet of a member of a government or a college of a Community or Region; ]¹

I’m not going on a chase to dig that up. But I would like to know if this means all “SPF …” agencies (SPF Economy, SPF Mobility, SPF Finances, SPF Foreign Afairs, etc) are exempt from commercial neutrality.

I also wonder if this apparently accidental legal effect is also accidentally nullified by this clause:

Art. 9. Where the application for advertising relates to an administrative document of an administrative [¹ instance]¹ [² ...]² including a work protected by copyright, the authorization of the author or of the person to whom the rights of the author were transferred is not required to authorize the on-site consultation of the document or to provide explanations about it.

Because I suspect that shitty corps like Facebook have a clause that transfers copyright to Facebook, in which case a request to liberate FB publications by a public service can be brushed off. But then that raises another question. In Belgium, copyright holders cannot transfer their copyright (which is actually to protect the human creator). E.g. the creator of the Smurfs cartoon retains copyright ownership. But then if my understanding is true, does that mean Belgian law is catoring just for the corner case of copyright being transferred outside of Belgium?

 

I think I may have found a gem here:

EN (machine translation, emphasis mine):

Article 3/5.[¹ The communication of federal administrative authorities is clear and recognizable. Federal administrative bodies communicate in a politically and commercially neutral manner. The obligation to communicate in a politically neutral manner shall not apply to the administrative bodies referred to in the second paragraph of Article 1(f). ]¹

What about that exception? We have:

1°[¹ administrative instance:

(f) the federal government's strategic bodies referred to in the Royal Decree of 19 July 2001 on the installation of the federal public services strategic bodies and relating to the personnel of the federal public services designated to form part of the cabinet of a member of a government or a college of a Community or Region; ]¹

I’m not going on a chase to dig that up. But I would like to know if this means all “SPF …” agencies (SPF Economy, SPF Mobility, SPF Finances, SPF Foreign Afairs, etc) are exempt from commercial neutrality.

I also wonder if this apparently accidental legal effect is also accidentally nullified by this clause:

Art. 9. Where the application for advertising relates to an administrative document of an administrative [¹ instance]¹ [² ...]² including a work protected by copyright, the authorization of the author or of the person to whom the rights of the author were transferred is not required to authorize the on-site consultation of the document or to provide explanations about it.

Because I suspect that shitty corps like Facebook have a clause that transfers copyright to Facebook, in which case a request to liberate FB publications by a public service can be brushed off. But then that raises another question. In Belgium, copyright holders cannot transfer their copyright (which is actually to protect the human creator). E.g. the creator of the Smurfs cartoon retains copyright ownership. But then if my understanding is true, does that mean Belgian law is catoring just for the corner case of copyright being transferred outside of Belgium?

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1289254

This is the 2024 update to the “Law of 11.04.1994”:

EN (machine translation):

Art.3/1.[¹ Federal administrative bodies inform citizens of federal regulations and, in particular, of the rights and obligations arising therefrom. This information includes at least the federal legislative and regulatory standards for the jurisdiction of the administrative body concerned. It is at least published on the website of the administrative body. ]¹


(1 Inserted by L 2024-05-12/18, art. 5, 007; Effective: 15-07-2024)

FR (original):

Art.3/1.[¹ Les instances administratives fédérales informent les citoyens de la réglementation fédérale et en particulier des droits et obligations qui en découlent. Cette information porte au moins sur les normes législatives et réglementaires fédérales relatives aux compétences de l'instance administrative concernée. Elle est à tout le moins publiée sur le site internet de l'instance administrative.]¹


(1 Inséré par L 2024-05-12/18, art. 5, 007; En vigueur : 15-07-2024)

The official website for federal statutes is https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/, which is an access restricted website that blocks people on the Tor network.

 

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1289254

This is the 2024 update to the “Law of 11.04.1994”:

EN (machine translation):

Art.3/1.[¹ Federal administrative bodies inform citizens of federal regulations and, in particular, of the rights and obligations arising therefrom. This information includes at least the federal legislative and regulatory standards for the jurisdiction of the administrative body concerned. It is at least published on the website of the administrative body. ]¹


(1 Inserted by L 2024-05-12/18, art. 5, 007; Effective: 15-07-2024)

FR (original):

Art.3/1.[¹ Les instances administratives fédérales informent les citoyens de la réglementation fédérale et en particulier des droits et obligations qui en découlent. Cette information porte au moins sur les normes législatives et réglementaires fédérales relatives aux compétences de l'instance administrative concernée. Elle est à tout le moins publiée sur le site internet de l'instance administrative.]¹


(1 Inséré par L 2024-05-12/18, art. 5, 007; En vigueur : 15-07-2024)

The official website for federal statutes is https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/, which is an access restricted website that blocks people on the Tor network.

[–] autonomousPunk@belgae.social 3 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for the insight. Apparently Mozilla is okay with this.

I suspect it violates open data law to impose JS execution as a precondition to reaching public documents.

[–] autonomousPunk@belgae.social 1 points 1 month ago

I gave some feedback here, but wanted to give video ideas (in vain of course because the Norwegian Consumer Council is not here in Lemmy.

Would have been great if one of the high-up enshitifiers were giving a seminar to the staff to emphasize how consumers are pushovers. They really missed something important. He could have said “just throw more CAPTCHAs at them.. they will solve them... the consumers have no spine, which is great for us!”

Would also be cool if they did a more serious Michael Moore style documentary, where they cover historic enshitification, such as British mail delayers (that is, there used to be a job where a human would look at how fast postal mail was being delivered and if lower class mail would be delivered as fast as 1st class mail, they would deliberately hold it back). And Intel who deliberately crippled their CPUs to clock at slower speeds than the chips were capable of. There are countless examples like this.

[–] autonomousPunk@belgae.social 2 points 1 month ago

The only reason beer is ever refrigerated is to sell it to people who want to drink it cold right away after purchase. The dates are always /best before/ dates on beer.

So IIUC, the grocer could have legally sold me the beer. In principle, a grocer could care about quality and decide not to sell anything past the /best before/ date.. Though I am skeptical that that would happen. The impression I got was that the staff at the grocery store did not even think about what kind of date it was.. just saw the date had passed and thus would not sell it.

So I have to wonder what happened to the clip of beer. The sensible thing for them to do is to put a -50% sticker on it, as they do with other beers that are just slow to move. I hope they did not pour it down a drain.

[–] autonomousPunk@belgae.social 26 points 1 month ago

Grabbed the PDF and commented over here with:

The Norweigans missed the most important (and easiest!) action:

  • Public services themselves need to get off Facebook & Twitter. If they can’t walk the walk and take their own advice, it’s not just an optical embarrassment. As someone who already boycotts the shitty gatekeepers (Cloudflare, google, ms, fb, apple, twtr), I am already free from enshittification

except when I must interact with a public service.

WTF?! The only unmanagable evil force I must deal with comes from the gov itself, who imposes shitty gatekeepers in the course of doing public tasks. I can’t boycott the government.

Belgian public services ALL use Microsoft for their email. So you should do everything on paper in Belgium. But what do they do? They scan paper letter/form/submissions and then they email it to themselves via Microsoft’s server. I shit you not. Microsoft is inescapable even by the most disciplined. And it’s only because the government itself will not ditch the motherfuckers.

Exceptionally, it’s somewhat redeeming that the Norweigans mention that public services should use open source. But that just scratches the surface. The very first thing they should do is get off Facebook and Twitter.

[–] autonomousPunk@belgae.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The Norweigans missed the most important (and easiest!) action:

  • Public services themselves need to get off Facebook & Twitter. If they can’t walk the walk and take their own advice, it’s not just an optical embarrassment. As someone who already boycotts the shitty gatekeepers (Cloudflare, google, ms, fb, apple, twtr), I am already free from enshittification

except when I must interact with a public service.

WTF?! The only unmanagable evil force I must deal with comes from the gov itself, who imposes shitty gatekeepers in the course of doing public tasks. I can’t boycott the government.

Belgian public services ALL use Microsoft for their email. So you should do everything on paper in Belgium. But what do they do? They scan paper letter/form/submissions and then they email it to themselves via Microsoft’s server. I shit you not. Microsoft is inescapable even by the most disciplined. And it’s only because the government itself will not ditch the motherfuckers.

Exceptionally, it’s somewhat redeeming that the Norweigans mention that public services should use open source. But that just scratches the surface. The very first thing they should do is get off Facebook and Twitter.

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