Hey, people who menstruate! Don't use software that leaks your period. There are clean, open source alternatives for your Android or Apple phone.
A Data protective App funded by the German government. Take that, Brits!
As if we needed more to be depressed about, what a mess our country now is. I can see why people immigrate.
Emigrate, maybe?
Not a bad idea in terms of keeping sensitive information out of the hands of companies and dragnet surveillance, but probably ineffective if your threat model is local police seizing your phone (like in the article) because you had a miscarriage, and using period tracker data against you somehow.
this sounds so fucking dystopian...
Amazing how many governments are interested in making sure babies happen - to the point of sounding alarms.
What do they know that they're not telling? Is the pollution so bad that we've wiped ourselves out biologically?
The birth rate is dropping almost everywhere and that’s bad for capitalism
All nations that receive the benefits of the industrial revolution, followed by increased education, medicine, resources, and stability seem to trend to a demographic transition. The net result is a stable, and usually falling, population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
They know that democracy has always just been an illusion to keep us in line and that we are actually just chattel slaves for the ruling class. The system they built requires a stable or growing population when in fact it's declining, so they're taking the easy way out to boost numbers.
In the future, they'll just grow us in vats so if we get out if line, they will just murder us all and grow a new batch of slaves. Progress! 😃
Aging populations are feared.
Soon, tampons will have wifi so they can send your data to the govt, and then they'll know you're pregnant before you even do.
DNA matching too, to make sure you don't pollute the data.
And the UK goverment really REALLY wants to have backdoors put into every kind on encryption.
Well, I'm sure the two aren't related.
Wait so I thought this was a thing in the US because of all the Christofascists. Does the UK also have a christofascist thing going on? Or is this just kind of an everything goes culture war bullshit thing?
The UK is a Christian theocracy. Their legal head of state is the head of the state religion.
Also I've I'm not mistaken UK lore dictates that the king/queen derives their power directly from God or something.
Lol I love the idea that the monarchy is just a group of LARPers that have made up lore about themselves as a backstory.
That's exactly what they are. Royalty made up the idea of divine right and then let the church in on the deal to provide legitimacy to it.
Fascism is closing its jaws on the human race globally.
Your Christo-fascists are pushing their agenda in the UK from here.
This network has been linked to major US funders of climate change denial and right-wing political causes including the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer, and to populist far-right parties in Europe, such as the Sweden Democrats and the Brothers of Italy
Wow, that's not maliciously intrusive at all. Big Brother is hard at work over in jolly old fuck that noise.
Wow, you never hear the UK mentioned as a place with abortion restrictions, but they have life in prison as a hypothetically administerable sentence for it, if done the wrong way.
Technically abortion is illegal. There has to be a medical reason for the abortion. In practice a Doctor would consider not wanting to be pregnant would make an abortion necessary. Practice and society expectations differ from the actual law.
This would suggest no prosector would bring charges against anyone, as it wouldn't be in the public interest. So the police shouldn't wast resources on it.
There has also been a rise in abortions lately. It appears to be down to misinformation online about contraception.
I heard a good news article on unexplained miscarriages on NPR last week.
There's a correlation between having a healthy baby and the volume of the placenta. Small placentas result in loss.
Which makes sense, the placenta is passing all the oxygen and nutrients to the baby, if it fails to size up, the baby is starved of nutrients and... well...
The doctor who invented the process to measure placental volume is getting the usual pushback from established medicine though. :(
Worth a listen if you have time:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/placenta-pregnancy-loss/
Almost all miscarriages are unexplained. Because research into health issues that primarily affect women is still in the fucking dark ages.
I had a friend who suffered multiple miscarriages (including one that wouldn't complete itself and almost required surgical intervention because she was bleeding so badly - a procedure that her home state of Ohio is trying to ban now because it's the exact same procedure that is used in ~~electric~~ elective abortions.
After so many losses they finally figured out that her progesterone levels were extremely low and supplemented progesterone the next time she got pregnant. She now has a healthy baby boy as a result.
Medicine doesn't even have solutions for so many of these problems, and half the government wants to take away one of the few tools available to us to keep women alive and healthy.
What if you "tell" the app you're pregnant when you're not, give it false data, and then have some other way to prove you were never pregnant... Then wait for them to arrest you so you can publicly shame them for spying. Is it illegal to lie to apps? Say you were doing an unrelated science experiment and wanted to utilize the features that period tracking apps already have
It's called data poisoning. I run AdNauseum and TrackMeNot which both do something similar but I'm shocked at the lack of data poisoning software development.
Hiding your data can be hard but filling your profile with junk is trivial by comparison.
I am a CIS male and run the Flo app just to mess with their stats and tracking. You wouldn't believe how often my period is off!
I've never used an app to track, but as a teen my periods were so inconsistent that they would probably think I was pregnant and miscarrying every 3 months. There were times I didn't bleed for 3 months then bled for 2, for years. This led me to starting birth control years before I ever had sex for the first time. I definitely would have been on some watchlist if that took place today.
Luckily, after years of trying to stop birth control (and going right back into that weird bleeding cycle every time! >:[ wtf body) my new doctor agreed to do a hysterectomy! It was just recently done, so I'm still recovering, but I'm so fucking happy I never have to deal with periods and bc pills ever again!
Sorry for the novel lol
Congratulations! I'm wicked happy for you, Internet Stranger :) and hope you a smooth recovery.
Same! I had a pregnancy scare a few weeks ago, but I'm back on my period again with my nonexistent uterus. Phew.
I bled 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and 21st of October. I plan on doing it backwards this month. My cup and non-existent uterus runneth over. I'm thinking of having a pregnancy scare next month sometime, just in time for the holidays.
In the civilized world it’s not even illegal to lie to the police (as a defendant).
100% nonsense if you apply some logic. British police have 0 time or budget to be investigating this. If someone stole my wallet while I was standing in front of a police officer they wouldn't be able to do a thing about it
By all means don't use software that shares your personal information with anyone but also don't waste time getting het up by this article
Kim Jong-un liked it
Orwell was right about that plce
Ah yes, just another day of people living their best lives in the free world.
Why is everyone acting like you NEED to use an app? Paper calendars work just fine
Simply: you shouldn't have to worry about medical data being shared with anyone without your consent, no matter if you use an app or tell your doctor.
Some apps have a degree of machine learning that can predict next periods very well. My ex sometimes had delayed periods due to a health condition. Clue was still able to predict her dates pretty accurately. Idk if there are any open source alternatives that'll work as well.
I have ADHD and cannot keep track of one more paper anything. I record it as something boring akin to a bank transaction now that I fear the government snooping but an app with bright blaring notifications kept me sane and only pregnant when I wanted to be for a decade. I'm mad that I don't feel safe using it any longer.
paper calendars work ok. apps are better at collating and predicting based on past data, and therefore giving you a better idea when and what to expect and whether it's "normal".
apps can help you provide a condensed report, which helps when seeking help from a doctor. it shouldn't work that way, but at least in my anecdotal experience, the Dr who dismisses handwritten notes for 3 months, was more reasonable when it was "data collected via app".
I stopped using an app a few years ago, because of privacy issues, but there are absolutely good reasons people still use them when a calendar works.
World News
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc