I have an amusing letter from the lawyers working for powerinsole threatening legal action for asking questions and that I should remove all my comments from social media. It was also demanded that I pay approx 350 euro that the letter cost to write. My response was to invest in the cost of the device, tear it down on video and post the analysis to facebook. That was more than 6 months ago. I have not heard from the lawyer since. I'll happily go to court with a printed t-shirt with the text "where is the battery?" but it won't come to that I guess.
True, but while I don't know Austria's laws, I know that in any country that isn't fully corrupt (and even in many of them) anyone can take anyone to court for anything. There are different rules around loser pays (there is no good answer here - only bad compromises) and how fast the judge will dismiss fraudulent claims, but if there is anyone who can't get a day in court over a legitimize issues the country is corrupt. Austria isn't perfect (no country is), but there international reputation isn't nearly bad enough that I would expect someone to be unable to get your in court for anything they want.
> Whether or not that lawsuit has any merit is irrelevant.
That’s not entirely true. In some jurisdictions persistent baseless legal action, or even empty threats of legal action can themselves be considered a cause for action.
Also, to sue someone for more than a "small claims" amount you need a lawyer and most lawyers will not bother with cases that they are obviously not going to win, and they are ethically bound to tell you that you have no case.
I don't think that's how things work in most European countries. Yes, there are costs but they will be covered by the loser. No way this person loses against these particular fraudsters
The situation in the EU in general is all but satisfactory, especially for investigative journalism. There exists a term for it: SLAPP – Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. There is currently an initiative of a group of European MEPs underway for better anti-SLAPP legislation in the EU member states. You may read more about the SLAPP problem in this article, published by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom: https://www.ecpmf.eu/slapp-the-background-of-strategic-lawsu...
Some countries are also sensible to abuse of the legal system to this end, e.g. Lenovo had to pay 20,000 EUR in damages after they decided to drag the case of a consumer who wanted his 42 EUR Windows license refunded: https://fsfe.org/news/2021/news-20210302-01.en.html
You can be sued for anything, or nothing. You might be able to "easily" win the case, which may still cost you resources that you may not want to expend, and you won't be reimbursed for the stress and time used, only the financial expenses (and even that isn't true in all jurisdictions).
That said, if you know the legal situation, demonstrating that you're not afraid of the legal threats is often the way to make them go away.
For security research, if the goal of the legal threat is to prevent you from publishing your results for the first time... publishing the results can significantly reduce the incentive to cause you further trouble because the goal is no longer achievable.
IANAL but my gut tells me no, unless you're in a place like Russia, North Korea, China, most of the Middle East, parts of Africa and Latin America, and some parts of the former Soviet Bloc. In western nations, you might get arrested for asking questions if it upsets the powers that be and they deem you a nuisance.
In UK you have a chance to end up with a "hate crime" if you don't follow the official line of (no)thinking(with a low change of being arrested). Pretty crazy stuff going on lately(past few years).
Well, maybe you own a waxing salon that does Brazilian waxes and you're Muslim and don't believe you should see or be in contact with male genitalia besides that of your husband.
> In 2018, Yaniv filed discrimination complaints with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against multiple waxing salons alleging that they refused to provide genital waxing to her because she is transgender.[15][16] Yaniv's case was the first major case of alleged transgender discrimination in retail in Canada.[17] Yaniv was seeking as much as $15,000 in damages from each beautician.[18] In their defence, estheticians said they lacked training on waxing male genitalia and they were not comfortable doing so for personal or religious reasons.[19] They further argued that being transgender was not the issue for them, rather having male genitalia was.[20] Yaniv rejected the claim that special training in waxing male genitalia was necessary,[21] and during the hearings equated the denial of the service to neo-Nazism.[22][16] Respondents were typically working from home, were non-white,[23] and were immigrants[24] who did not speak English. Two of the businesses were forced to shut down due to the complaints.[25]
Before anyone jumps in this thread saying "WOKE CULTURE IS DESTROYING THE WORLD", she also lost all of her lawsuits.
> In October 2019, the Tribunal ruled against Yaniv and ordered her to pay $6,000 in restitution... The ruling was critical of Yaniv... stating that she "targeted small businesses, manufactured the conditions for a human rights complaint, and then leveraged that complaint to pursue a financial settlement from parties who were unsophisticated and unlikely to mount a proper defence."
This is a person who deliberately does all sorts of weird shit for the sole purpose of using her trans identity to sue people when they react negatively to it.
For example, she apparently called her local fire department "dozens of times" for "help getting out of the bath" (when in reality she needed no assistance) and "subjected Fire Department staff to "inappropriate and lewd conduct"".
More like "just the one example." This same case is trotted out every time somebody wants to make this point because it does not actually seem to be a trend.
But besides that, it doesn't answer the question you were responding to. Asking someone's birth sex does not tell you what genitalia they have. It doesn't even really tell you what genitalia they had at birth. Since those salon owners say they specifically objected to the woman's current genitalia rather than the woman's status as transgender, birth sex is the wrong question to ask.
> They further argued that being transgender was not the issue for them, rather having male genitalia was
To be clear, the beauticians explicitly didn't care (per their claims) what the birth sex of the customer was, so I'm not sure how that would be a relevant question here? Per their claims, they'd have had the same issue with a trans-man who'd had bottom surgery.
> Well, maybe you own a waxing salon that does Brazilian waxes and you're Muslim and don't believe you should see or be in contact with male genitalia besides that of your husband.
Then you’d probably want to ask “What kind of genitalia do you currently possess”. Sex assigned at birth is not a reliable indicator of that, for reasons very similar to why current gender identity isn't.
> Sex assigned at birth is not a reliable indicator of that
You might want to rethink that phrasing, because it’s a very reliable indicator. That’s the entire problem. <1% of the population have genitalia that doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.
Asking someone “what genitalia they currently posses” is more offensive because it sound like you’re talking about an accessory that people swap out on whim. “Which will you be carrying with you today? The penis or the vagina?”
> > Sex assigned at birth is not a reliable indicator of that
> You might want to rethink that phrasing, because it’s a very reliable indicator
In the context where current gender identity is an insufficiently reliable indicator, which is the context of the supposed need to ask the question, no, it is not.
If you need to probe beyond current gender identity because your personal sensitivities about genitalia can tolerate no error, then you need also to bypass indirect proxies entirely and ask the question you are actually concerned about regarding genitalia.
Based on the discussions therein I can see where my thinking was not quite on point, or I did not explain myself properly. YES a question could be a a form of a hate crime, I can think of examples where asking someone a question that be interpreted (probably rightfully) as a hate crime. I was thinking more of non-hateful questions, such as questioning authority.
