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Welcome to the Bogosity Podcast for the week of April 12 2026,
the podcast that wants to hold your ha-a-and.
This is your host, Shane Killian. Let's obviate the News of the Bogus.
One controversy over recent years is gender reassignment surgery done on minors.
And the mainstream view has been if you're against it in any way,
you're a transphobic fascist who should be killed on social media and have your Tesla set on fire.
More recently, we've heard from a lot of these young people who have come of age,
and said the gender reassignment was the worst thing for them—
some even going so far as to sue the doctors and even their own parents!
But now we have good scientific data as well, thanks to a study published in Acta Pæediatrica.
This is a study from Finland, where they tracked every gender-referred adolescent in the country for 25 years.
And for the most part, gender reassignment made things worse, not better.
The study was possible because Finland referred
all gender identity reassignments to two university hospitals,
and all health information in Finland is reported to the national health registry.
I mean, I know I'm not moving to Finland any time soon! Sheesh...
But it does allow us to do studies like this, where a cohort of over 2000 individuals
was compared to over 16,000 matched population controls.
The study was led by Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala of Tampere University Hospital,
who has run Finland's youth gender clinic since 2011.
This wasn't a small study, and there were no dropouts.
It's the full picture throughout Finland. Every single one.
There can't be a selection bias if there's no selection!
The study found that psychiatric morbidity increased after referral, from 45.7% to 61.7%,
whereas the control population actually saw a slight drop from 15% to 14.6%.
Among those who underwent gender reassignment, it was even worse:
rising 50.9 percentage points for feminizing reassignment, and 32.9 for masculinizing reassignment.
They concluded: "After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment,
all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity,
with hazard ratios approximately three times higher than female controls
and five times higher than male controls.
Severe psychiatric morbidity is common among gender-referred adolescents
and appears to be more prevalent in those referred after the recent surge in referrals.
Psychiatric needs do not subside after medical gender reassignment."
The surge they're referring to started in 2010, with a tenfold increase in referrals.
I'll spare you the actual numbers, but what they show
is that mental health issues are presenting as gender identity issues, not the other way around.
In other words, in a significant number of cases, the gender identity issues might go away entirely
if the underlying issue is successfully treated or managed.
You don't need me to preach the moral of this story to you.
You've figured it out yourself, just from the data
and how harshly it goes against the narrative we've been inundated with for over 15 years.
The study concluded: "Subsequent to medical GR, psychiatric treatment needs appear to increase.
It should be noted that in some individuals, medical GR appears to be linked to deterioration in mental health.
The effects of medical GR and the expectations of the patient
must be addressed before commencing the treatment.
This underscores the need to thoroughly assess and appropriately treat mental disorders
among those seeking GR before and after undergoing irreversible medical treatments.
Psychiatric needs must be adequately met."
And that should always take priority over politics.
It's time for science to start forcing the public policy debate, not the other way around.
Presenting: the greatest game this side of Yuggoth!
You are H.P. Lovecraft's cat, and your name is Ni***
...Right. We can't say that on a podcast.
Anyway, that's the point: Your name is a joke.
So now, you are out for revenge. You become...the NecronomiCat!
Using the Necronomicon, you come to the present day to buy a gat.
That's a gun. For a cat.
It's a phat cat gat.
But the Necronomicon is treacherous, and it let in Lovecraft's monsters.
Now, in a crumbling world, you must fight!
Build your team, buy guns and armor,
buy items of dubious legality, defeat the bosses of each level.
Then take Lovecraft down!
Play NecronomiCat! The link is at cat.bogosity.tv.
Yeah, we're doing cat.bogosity.tv, not...that other one.
What, you want me to get kicked off the Internet or something?
The anti-AI movement is literally getting insane, spilling over into an anti-datacenter movement.
We've talked about this before. Datacenters are being built all over the country,
and the news reports and public policy discussions make it all about AI,
even though AI is less than 15% of what datacenters do.
Most of it is supporting everything we do today,
as we run more applications in the cloud and store more data there.
Goldman Sachs expects the AI portion to rise to 27% by the end of 2027,
so it's growing, but it still won't be anywhere near a majority.
If you want to know why all those datacenters are being built,
look to your left, look to your right, then look in the mirror.
As we've covered before, we're doing more tasks in the cloud, both personal and corporate,
and that ultimately saves power compared to doing it all locally on our own machines.
We covered how the screeching about power and water usage is just a ruse from anti-AI neo-Luddites.
Now, they've officially gotten violent.
An Indianapolis council member had 13 bullets fired into his home while he and his 8-year-old son were asleep.
A handwritten note that said "No data centers" was left under the doormat.
Gibson said, quote: "My son was at home, so that says a lot about the shooter's inhumanity.
I would just want to know why. That reality is deeply unsettling.
This was not just an attack on my home, but endangered my child and disrupted the safety of our entire neighborhood.
I understand that public service can bring strong opinions and disagreement,
but violence is never the answer, especially when it puts families at risk."
The incident followed a city council meeting where Gibson and other councilors spoke out in favor of the datacenter.
Gibson said, quote: "There are real benefits tied to this development.
Construction is expected to support roughly 300 jobs over a three-year period."
Councilors also pointed out how the datacenter will bring revenue to the local area.
The news media made a big deal out of the fact that,
when attendants were asked to stand up if they were against the project, most of them stood up.
What they didn't tell you, that's easily visible on the video, is that these were sign-carrying protesters.
That was arranged on the back-end!
Whereas people who are in favor of such projects or just don't care
generally don't show up. Always remember that.
That's an effect that always gives the neo-Luddites and other obstructionists an advantage.
The datacenter will be built on a site that's been unused for 40 years. No one will lose homes or businesses.
And there was no comparison of how much power and water a datacenter would use
as opposed to, say, an apartment complex or an office block built on that property.
Meanwhile, politicians such as AOC,
after doing everything they can to disrupt and mismanage our energy system,
are now blaming the increase in energy prices on AI.
Datacenters are just the latest 5G hysteria,
from the same people that burned Teslas and set businesses on fire in the "Summer of Love."
While they give lip service against the violence,
the news media does nothing to abate the violence or even ask why it's really happening—
in fact, it does just the opposite by giving them the spotlight.
This is utter insanity, and unless we have more voices of reason speaking out, this will likely get worse.
Datacenters are not your enemy.
People opposing AI and nuclear power and other technological marvels are.
I'm Brother Ezekiel, and I know how naughty thou hast been!
So naughty, thou needst a VPN!
Hide thy iniquity from prying eyes, and make sure the liturgical authorities remain ignorant.
Take thy browser to vpn.bogosity.tv to get BoxPN.
At $6.36 a month, a price only the most penurious would balk at,
thou shalt have unlimited high-speed connections to servers all over the globe.
And they don't log connections. Thy privacy is assured.
That should please you sinners!
Just remember: the Lord sees all!
When travelling, make it look like thou art still home.
At home, ensure the elders at your ISP don't take out their
judgement with traffic-shaping and DMCA notices!
Up to 5 devices can connect at once, almost one for every deadly sin!
Keep thy sins private. Go to vpn.bogosity.tv.
And we have another infringement verdict wiped out
as a result of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Cox v. Sony.
In a case that was almost identical, Warner, Sony, and other big players in the music cartel
sued ISP Grande Communications
because they didn't do enough to terminate subscribers they claimed were pirating.
They claimed they sent over a million copyright infringement notices,
but Grande failed to terminate even a single subscriber.
They wouldn't shut off the entire Internet access of a
family or business or college campus or hospital or whatever,
because the content cartels told them a rumor.
The trial lasted more than two weeks and Grande was found liable and ordered to pay $47 million in damages.
The verdict was confirmed by the Fifth Circuit, but they did order a new trial on damages.
Last year, Grande petitioned the Supreme Court for review,
saying that the Fifth Circuit's ruling was squarely at odds with Supreme Court precedent,
using pretty much the same arguments as Cox.
As the Supreme Court recently ruled, mere knowledge is not enough for scienter,
or the intent to commit an act of infringement.
That requires either active participation in or encouragement of the act of infringement.
Earlier this week, in their order list, the top item read:
"Grande Communications Networks v. UMG Recordings, Inc., et al.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted.
The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
for further consideration in light of Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment."
So, go back and try again, and get it right this time!
The Fifth Circuit now has to figure out if Grande's conduct meets the much higher intent threshold established in Cox,
the one that the Copyright Act always said applied.
They're going to have to prove active inducement,
which is gonna be difficult because the content cartel didn't even allege it!
Also, we can pretty much predict that this will mean the death knell of the RIAA's case against Verizon as well.
Hopefully, it'll go beyond that and apply to cases against social media companies,
cloud storage companies, datacenters, hosting providers, AI companies, and many others as well.
Of course, what it almost certainly won't mean
is the elimination of corporatist, mercantilist cartels like the RIAA to begin with,
even though the whole point of antitrust laws is that organizations like them shouldn't exist.
As long as they and the MPA and all the others are around, you know antitrust is just a fraud,
an excuse to protect the crony industries from competition.
Still, Cox was a major blow to them, and a welcome one as well.
I want to tell you about the eyeglasses I've been wearing for years.
As people can see on my videos, I have a very strong prescription,
which makes glasses more expensive, especially when I need computer glasses,
reading glasses, prescription sunglasses,
and most expensively, progressive lenses for general everyday wear.
To save money while still getting quality glasses, I get them from Firmoo.
In fact, I just got a pair of progressives with high index aspherical lenses
in a nice pair of frames my wife loves, for just over $100.
It would have been $500 to get them through my eye doctor.
Not only do they look good, the glasses are durable.
I've worn many pairs for several years without problems.
All orders come with a 30-day return policy,
a 3-month warranty, and one-on-one customer service.
Go to firmoo.bogosity.tv any time you need quality glasses at a low price.
Once again, that's firmoo.bogosity.tv.
And now it's time to overtechnicalize this week's Biggest Bogon Emitter.
So this one is Catch-22 meets The Trial meets Sisyphus.
Yeah, who else would it be but Microsoft?
Two leading open source figures were inexplicably locked out of their accounts,
with no warning and no response from Microsoft.
Oh, and they just happen to be competing with Microsoft software.
Mounir Idrassi, the developer of VeraCrypt, which competes directly with Bitlocker
(and does a much better job), posted a statement to SourceForge:
"I have encountered some challenges but the most serious one
is that Microsoft terminated the account I have used for years to sign Windows drivers and the bootloader.
Microsoft did not send me any emails or prior warnings.
I have received no explanation for the termination and their message indicates that no appeal is possible.
I have tried to contact Microsoft through various channels but I have only received automated replies and bots.
I was unable to reach a human.
This termination impacts my work beyond VeraCrypt and has consequences for my daily job.
Currently I'm out of options."
A week later, he told The Register that he was still locked out and hadn't heard anything from Microsoft.
The second is Jason Donenfeld, developer of WireGuard, which directly competes with Azure.
Responding to Idrassi's post on Hacker News, he wrote:
"This is the same problem I'm currently facing with WireGuard. No warning at all, no notification.
One day I sign in to publish an update, and yikes, account suspended.
Currently undergoing some sort of 60 days appeals process, but who knows.
That's kind of crazy: what if there were some critical RCE in WireGuard,
being exploited in the wild, and I needed to update users immediately?
(That's just hypothetical; don't freak out!)
In that case, Microsoft would have my hands entirely tied."
He told The Register, quote: "As somebody on Hacker News noted, if someone was a bad actor,
right now would be a pretty good time to start exploiting zero days in WireGuard.
I mean, hopefully there aren't zero days in WireGuard. But if there were, Jiminy Cricket!"
He said his saga has been going on for two weeks, and said, quote:
"I got a new super expensive EV code signing certificate—
this Microsoft requirement is kind of a racket in its own right—
and I was ready to log in to the Partner Portal
and submit my signed package and driver to Microsoft for automated inspection,
which usually results in a Microsoft signature required for loading drivers into the kernel."
And that was when he found out—the hard way—that he'd been locked out.
He found the place where he needed to file the appeal... but it requires he be logged into his account.
In fact, the only way they got any movement on this at all
was the controversy that boiled up online and in the tech media.
Microsoft's Pavan Davuluri Xed:
"We've seen these reports and are actively working to resolve this as quickly as possible.
We've reached out to VeraCrypt and have spoken to Jason at WireGuard, they should be back up and running soon."
Yeah... but what about all the little guys who have this happen to them but don't get the attention online?
His excuse was, quote:
"This is all part of our ongoing efforts to help protect customers and the Windows ecosystem.
We worked hard to make sure partners understood this was coming, from emails, banners, reminders."
Except, the developers never received any such thing.
OSRDrivers confirmed, quote: "With respect that's pure nonsense.
First, a blog post is not reasonable notice to a finite list of companies many of whose customers—
some in critical situations—depend on their ability to sign drivers.
Next, when we logged on in October and saw the banner, found our signing access restricted,
we immediately completed the verification process and were once again able to sign drivers.
Then, suddenly and with no notice or warning, as we were preparing to release an update for our customers,
we discovered we didn't have signing access anymore.
All the domain admins in OSR didn't miss the email.
It was either never sent, or it never got to our M365-hosted Outlook inboxes.
Finally, directing people to a generic support page that asks you to engage with a chat bot is insulting.
This problem is waaaay beyond that level.
There are multiple, well known, reputable, companies that have been impacted the same way.
It's not just us here at OSR. Telling us 'it's not us, it's you... yes, all of you... and you, and you..."
just doesn't seem too credible, you know?"
They had been suddenly locked out after over 30 years of reliably signing Windows drivers.
Now consider that Microsoft has been working to make it mandatory
to log in to your Microsoft account to access Windows.
On your own machine. That you paid for.
Imagine being locked out of your own machine for 90 days,
or maybe even permanently, without even being told why or even that it happened!
Oh, you think you're gonna ditch Microsoft forever and go to Linux?
Need I remind you who is in charge of all the SecureBoot certificates?
So, your favorite Linux distro's developer wakes up one morning to update his certificate, gets locked out,
and the certificate expires leaving all of their users—including you—locked out of your machines!
I don't think this is even a question of whether or not this is incompetence rather than malice.
At some point, there becomes no difference between the two.
So all of that makes Microsoft this week's Biggest Bogon Emitter.
And now let's overexaggerationalizationalify this week's Idiot Extraordinaire.
Know how everydamnthing's addictive these days?
Yeah, the Massachusetts state supreme court just decided unanimously
that Instagram is addictive and Meta can be sued by the Commonwealth,
even though they haven't been shown to have violated any state law and no one cares about the First Amendment or § 230.
They ruled:
"The Commonwealth alleges that Meta Platforms, Inc., and Instagram, LLC (collectively, Meta),
engaged in unfair business practices by designing the Instagram platform to induce compulsive use by children,
engaged in deceptive business practices by deliberately misleading the public about the safety of the platform,
and created a public nuisance by engaging in these unfair and deceptive practices."
They got around all of that by making it about conduct, not speech:
"The claims do not seek to impose liability on Meta for information provided by third parties.
Instead, the claims allege harm stemming from Meta's own conduct
by designing a social media platform that capitalizes on the developmental vulnerabilities of children.
At least at this preliminary stage of the litigation,
Meta has not shown it is entitled to the protection provided by § 230(c)(1).
The challenged design features (e.g., infinite scroll, autoplay, IVR, and ephemeral content)
concern how, whether, and for how long information is published,
but the published information itself is not the source of the harm alleged.
Instead, the claim alleges that the features themselves induce compulsive use
independent of the content provided by third-party users."
And to top it all off, they even sounded off a huge signal
that age verification should be a strict standard for websites, browsers, and OSes,
by basically declaring that if the age verification isn't up to scratch, then the service can be held liable, quote:
"Here, the Commonwealth asserts that the defective age verification features
give rise to heightened harm to underage users
who are particularly vulnerable to the design features challenged in count I.
The Commonwealth does not allege harm stemming from the content of any information published."
So, it's not even about nudie pictures or anything. We have to protect the children from infinite scrolling!
But...minors have First Amendment rights, too.
That's another thing that's being neglected here: this isn't just about Meta's First Amendment rights,
but the rights of all of their users as well.
And the very thing that's gotten them in trouble— the fact that people spend a lot of time on the app—
is what lets us know that the people do desire to receive the protected speech of the people posting it!
Eugene Vokolh and Jane Bambauer had sent an amicus brief to the court, which basically went ignored. Quote:
"Their choices about how to craft and format those products are presumptively protected by the First Amendment.
That protection extends to the very features the Commonwealth demands Meta remove.
Push notifications, for instance, allow social media platforms to speak to users about new content.
Endless scrolling, autoplay, and ephemeral features let social media platforms
decide how users see speech on the platforms,
just as a newspaper chooses how to format the front page
or a film director chooses whether to break up a movie into multiple episodes.
Whether these features constitute Meta's own direct speech,
or are structural decisions about how Meta presents third-party speech,
they stem from constitutionally protected decisions about where,
when, and how speech is communicated (and, as to the 'like' button, what speech is communicated)."
And that includes minors, quote:
"Like adults, minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection,
and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances
may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them.
Protected speech cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas
or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them.
Brown struck down a restriction on violent video games,
regardless of the ideas the games conveyed.
The same principle applies to other display and content features such as autoplay, likes, and endless scrolling."
And the lawsuit improperly asks judges and juries
to second-guess Meta's choices about how its users communicate with each other.
If you say, "You can say whatever you want, but only in the way we want you to,"
you've violated their First Amendment rights just as much as any other restriction.
Quote: "The Commonwealth characterizes Meta's design features as 'independent of content'
and therefore not within Moody's protection. But this is a false distinction.
By expressing disapproval through its content moderation policies,
Meta may approve of and encourage speech through its design features.
For example, the 'like' function is a design feature that helps shape the content of Meta products,
by adding extra information to each post (the number of likes),
by encouraging users to post popular content that draws more likes,
and by encouraging users to read more popular content that has drawn more likes."
There's nothing about this that isn't expressive.
Design is expression. Method of communication is expression. Format is expression.
And anyone who read this amicus brief can see that easily. Quote:
"The Commonwealth claims the power to regulate a social media platform's design decisions
concerning where, when, and how speech is communicated—
and in the case of likes, what speech is communicated.
But the First Amendment provides protections against speech-based negligence claims,
as this Court and other courts have recognized.
And the First Amendment also protects speech producers' expressing their views
about whether their speech is valuable and harmful.
The Commonwealth's attempt to regulate Meta's speech thus fails heightened First Amendment scrutiny."
Design isn't just a technical thing. It's a vital part of how communication happens and how effective it is.
You don't get to sue someone just for doing it well.
So all of that makes the Massachusetts Supreme Court this week's Idiot Extraordinaire.
Well, that wraps up this "I haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert"
edition of the Bogosity Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it;
if you did, please go to donate.bogosity.tv for several ways to support,
and discord.bogosity.tv to join the discussion.
Subscribe at the Discord, Patreon, or SubscribeStar and you can listen early and ad-free.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, here's a quote from Lawrence Lessig:
"Law and technology produce, together, a kind of regulation of creativity we've not seen before."
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