Utah Opened an Anti-Trans Bathroom Complaint Form. Trolls Flooded It With Bee Movie Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Utah Republicans rolled out a new online form this week, allowing anyone to report violations of the state’s new anti-transgender bathroom law — but this latest “snitch line” has already been overwhelmed by trolls, errors, and at least one truly egregious privacy goof.
The form, unveiled this week via the Utah State Auditor’s office, comes three months after Republican Gov. Spender Cox signed HB 257 into law, legally redefining “biological sex” according to a person’s reproductive organs and strictly dividing bathrooms on government-controlled property by that definition. A trans person using a facility that does not match their assigned sex at birth could be fined up to $1,000 and spend six months in jail for alleged “voyeurism” and/or criminal trespass.
After those new statutes went into effect May 1, Utah officials launched a complaint form to allow any member of the public to report an alleged violation of the bathroom law. The form, which bears the downright Orwellian title “Distinctions on the Basis of Sex,” asks users to report any violations they witnessed in a school or government facility, including if a school allowed a trans student to play on a sports team intended for the “opposite sex,” and to provide extensive details and any existing evidence pertaining to the violation.
Of course, extremely online individuals descended upon the much-derided “snitch” form almost immediately, uploading batches of irrelevant text and files — especially memes — for investigators to enjoy. This mass trolling apparently caused the form to crash on Thursday, as Media Matters program director Ari Drennen noted on social media. (You know what they say: snitches get glitches.)
In fairness, it doesn’t seem like disabling the form was very complicated: as many observed, there appears to be no upper limit to the file size one can upload, nor is there any apparent character limit to the text fields. Want to upload the entirety of SpongeBob SquarePants in stunning 4K, along with a transcript of every episode? That would be a real shame and a waste of taxpayer money, but unfortunately, there’s just no way to prevent this!
The Utah Board of Education member posted a photo of a girls’ basketball team with a caption implying one of the athletes is trans.
How do we know what’s been uploaded? Well, as some eagle-eyed reporters over at 404 Media confirmed, the form didn’t securely store any of the data that day-one users submitted. Instead, the submissions were stored on a public Google cloud that required no authentication to access, allowing reporters to view their own test reports as well as all content (but not names or contact information) that others had uploaded up to that point — including piles of memes, stock photos of bull testicles, and of course, character art from Bee Movie. When asked for comment about the lack of security, the Utah state auditor’s office did not respond, but changed the cloud’s permissions to require authentication shortly thereafter, 404 Media reported.
It’s not clear exactly what Utah conservatives expected to happen when they rolled out a tattletale form with looser security than a white-collar prison. Trolling the surveillance state through its own apparatus is almost as old as surveillance itself, and has become the default response when Republicans unveil such programs. Similar “snitch” forms targeting LGBTQ+ people in Indiana and Mississippi over the past year have received similar treatment, while local officials have said such tools aren’t effective or properly vetted.
Still, the form itself is indicative of Utah’s current climate of anti-trans hostility and paranoia, which affects trans and cis people alike. In February, a cis teenager was granted police protection after Utah Board of Education member Natalie Cline posted her picture online to speculate that she was trans, based only on her physical features and athletic performance. Cline’s post sparked a wave of cyberbullying and threats of violence against the girl and her family.
“Attacks on trans rights are fueled by paranoia, division, and hatred that puts us all in danger,” the ACLU wrote in a statement at the time.
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