datashade

[datashade]

American vlogging family with three young kids moves to Russia.

Husband is promised Russian citizenship and rear area service as a welder if he joins the RU Army.

Gets sent to the Ukrainian frontline after 3 weeks of training.

[datashade]

Pay attention to the particulars of Mastercard's responses, because this a textbook example of how to create plausible deniability.

"Mastercard has not barred any legal transaction" is, technically, a true statement – because Mastercard is not the one processing the transactions in the first place. Mastercard does not deal directly with any merchant, and in fact typically refuses to communicate with merchants at all; there's always a payment processing service sitting in between Mastercard and the merchant, whether that's Stripe or Paypal or any of dozens of other service providers.

Consequently, there are two layers of service agreements in place: the agreement between Mastercard and the payment processing service, and the agreement between the payment processing service and the merchant. That second layer of service agreements, between the payment processing service and the merchant, is where all of these content restrictions are being imposed. Mastercard can thus truthfully claim that they aren't barring legal transactions.

Now, if you've been paying attention, you've probably already spotted the issue: if the content restrictions are being imposed upon the merchants by individual payment processing services and not by Mastercard, why do all of those payment processing services seem to have exactly the same content restrictions?

That's where the critical sleight of hand comes in: while Mastercard's own terms of service do not require payment processing services to bar transactions of particular types, their ToS does require payment processors to bar transactions which could be damaging to the Mastercard brand. What constitutes damage to the Mastercard brand is not defined; it means whatever Mastercard wants it to mean. The payment processing services are thus in a position where they can be held in breach of Mastercard's terms of service for basically any reason, which gives them a strong incentive not to test any boundaries.

And that's why Mastercard can truthfully say they have never barred any legal transaction: they're never the ones doing the blocking. The layer of payment processing services that sits between Mastercard and the merchants are enforcing those content restrictions, based on a series of unwritten handshake agreements between the payment processors and Mastercard regarding what does and does not constitute acceptable content – and because the particulars of those handshake agreements aren't in writing, Mastercard can assert that their terms of service do not compel payment processing services to bar any legal transaction and technically be telling the truth.

[datashade]

Evacuation

[datashade]

ubi, universal basic income

[datashade]

Soooooo some more news on this hellscape we call earth. Wikimediq is refusing to comply with the uk online safety law and is in a court case with the uk government.

Last I checked the uk petition to repeal this law hit the 100k milestone so they'll have to discuss in parliament. Keep signing/sharing to bring that number up higher.

[datashade]

Yesterday I learned that those stickers I keep seeing on alpha/Zoomer's faces, are in fact, pimple patches. I just never questioned it. I was like "oh, we tricking out the puss like a trapper keeper now, alright, go off, chirrens"

[datashade]

[datashade]

so twitter is blocking videos of the Gazan genocide in the UK as harmful content, to comply with the online safety act. who could have foreseen that the government would use the act to pursue its political agenda under the guise of protecting children?

[datashade]

they are barring wikipedia. they are barring spotify. they are barring important news - both national news and world news. they are barring mental health forums and LGBTQ related things and so much more. this is not about protecting children, it has never been about protecting children.

the online safety act is an insane privacy breach, and if that does not scare you then you need to think harder about it. it is going to end up in a massive data leak - all the information is getting collected by random third party systems. can we trust them? no. can we even hold them accountable? no. because the government couldn’t even make their own system to do these age checks.

and i hear you - it is important that kids don’t see porn. but even if all this was about protecting kids, it’s sloppy and useless. it’s easy (for now) to get around with a vpn and the only thing the act doing is censoring things that it shouldnt. if the government wanted to protect kids, they would do something concrete about it - they would be putting more funding into education, for example.

of course the policy isnt called “national surveillance”. they’re not going to call it that. everything will be hidden behind things that people want.

so email your MP, and tell other people that this is WAY more than blocking porn from children - this is the first step towards national surveillance.

[datashade]

[datashade]

Superheroes need media training

The first video that loads when you open the app is of a woman sitting on a park bench. She looks like a university student, with an open tote bag filled to the brim with books and folders. Her head is bent over a book and heavy black headphones sit over her ears. The sound of children playing and cars zipping past fill the background in a not unpleasant drone. Then the man holding the camera starts speaking.

“It’s important to always remain vigilant when in public,” he says. He circles the camera and the view shudders as he props his phone up on a picnic table. He’s wearing a striped mask that looks like it came out of one of those generic hero costume boxes. His hair looks like he blew dry it straight up into the air. He checks the view as he talks. “Today I’ll show you why you should never wear headphones in public.”

The man jogs out of frame. You’ve got a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. It doesn’t look like she’s in on whatever skit this is. She’s enjoying a nice day at the park, reading her book on her break. The man reappears behind the line of benches, approaching her from her blind spot. He’s got rope in his hands and is tiptoeing with cartoonishly high knees.

These sort of pranks have been really popular lately. You hate them. Your grip tightens on your phone as he creeps closer and closer, raising the rope above his head. Oh shit. He’s going to try and wrap it around her neck. That’s going too far, that’s an actual threat—

The man shouts out as he drops the rope around the woman’s shoulders, yanking it so hard that her head whips when her back hits the bench. Her hands fly up to pull at the rope around her chest and you can see terror on her face. He’s not intelligible to the camera from this far away, but you think he might be yelling “Be aware!” over and over again as he fights to keep the woman trapped.

The prank is going on for too long. You think you might hear someone shout from the playground. Maybe for him to stop?

Before anyone comes to her aid, the woman gives up trying to get out of the rope. Instead, she twists in it so she can look up into the face of her attacker. Before he can shout anything else, she breathes out a cloud of icy mist that swallows him instantly.

Oh.

You set your phone down and flush the toilet. What an idiot. Not only did he plan an assault disguised as a prank, but he tried to pull it on a super-powered individual. You don’t know what her ice breath did to him, but did it matter? He was asking for the worst by surprising someone in this day and age.

After you wash your hands, you Google the aftermath. You’re gratified to see a picture of her standing in front of the courthouse, her headphones around her neck, and an icy NOT GUILTY spelled out in the air in front of her.

The next video is of Strongwoman’s last battle. It’s rare for you to see footage of the DC heroes, and even rarer to see her. You stay to watch. She’s one of the few heroes that don’t wear a mask. Her strength means that, civilian or not, there’s precious few that can hurt her.

She slaps a chunk of concrete out of the air with one hand. Her hands are up and ready to fight for a good few seconds until the dust begins to settle. Her head cocks and you see her press one finger against her ear. Probably receiving the all clear. Strongwoman’s shoulders drop and she goes to re-tie her hair.

The video freezes on her with her hair tie in her mouth, brown eyes focused on something in the distance, her hands tangled in her wild mane of hair. A thirst trap song starts playing and the creator of the video clips in close up shots of Strongwoman’s biceps, her steely gaze, the way her muscles tense and jump in her thighs when she catches debris–

You’ve spent too long on SuperTok now. You scroll past a woman rattling off the current graduating class at the Hero Academy. You don’t care where people think a Hero will be placed. You only care what they do when they get to their city and that city happens to be yours.

Speaking of which, a video with Hero Cowboy pops up. You hold your thumb over the screen, frowning. The western-themed hero has on his cowboy hat, sure, and his tasseled leather vest, yes, but there’s something strange about the video. After a moment, you realize what it is. This isn’t a press conference or the aftermath of a battle. There’s a kitchen table with fruit in the background and the light catching on his stubble is from cold overhead lighting.

The username at the bottom of the screen confirms your suspicions. Hero Cowboy has a Tiktok.

“Morning routine of a superhero,” he says and winks at you. “Because super or not, we all wake up the same!”

You nearly choke on your coffee when the video cuts to him sleeping shirtless in bed, still wearing his hat and leather mask. The time scrolls across the screen as he stretches provocatively.

 4:30am. Because crime isn’t a 9-5.

He gets up and the camera switches to show his back as he looks across the city.

You check the comments. They seriously doubt he got up at 4:30 considering the sunrise for the day was at 5:30 and it was already cresting the horizon.

4:32 am. Push ups.

Yep, there he is doing shirtless push-ups.

A commenter wants to know if he’s trying to get her pregnant. Another one wants to know if pushups even do anything if you have enhanced strength.

4:37 am. Pull ups.

Hero Cowboy uses his doorframe, apparently, and not the state-of-the-art gym kept in Headquarters.

The comments are wildly in favor of him pulling up to their apartments anytime.

The rest of the video is Hero Cowboy spending more time setting up his shots than actually doing what he claims to do. He makes an omelet that looks very similar to the one served at the canteen, washes his face in ice water, and prints out an email for the day’s patrol.

It’s when he shows how he plots out his patrol based on villain activity on a giant map of the city hanging in his living room that you actually have to do something about this. You download the video and send it to your boss with “security breach lol” in the subject line. You let her know you will be billing for the off hours work.

She calls within thirty seconds. She doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Uploaded an hour ago,” you say.

“A map?”

“Yep.”

“Of his team’s actual patrol schedule?”

“Yep.”

“The one they’re meant to be executing today?”

“As we speak.”

“Why are you the first one to catch this?”

Because you’re twenty years younger than the second youngest in the department. Half-jokingly you say, “Maybe you should put me in charge of socials. I think I found the last one too.”

 “You know what? Yes. Until we get actual media training scheduled for these assholes, this is your job.”

You pause making yourself a second cup of coffee. “Like actually? Billable hours actually?”

“Don’t go crazy.”

Holy shit. You’re getting paid to scroll now. You’d thank Hero Cowboy,  if the guy wasn’t such a psychopath. How many times did he realistically need to wash his face in ice water?

You swipe to the next video.

----

Thanks for reading! The next post is already up on my Patreon:

Summary: You are a retired villain. It feels like the villains are winning a lot lately. You decide to do something about it.

I appreciate all the support :)

[datashade]

Ironically, the whole "ask me again in two weeks" thing is actually more transparent than what a lot of major software vendors used to do, which is ostensibly allow you to opt out permanently, but every major update would "accidentally lose" your privacy settings and change all of your opt-outs back to opt-ins without telling you.

[datashade]

Stunning.

[datashade]

Seeing people in support of the online safety act and calling people who voted gooners.

[datashade]

We've not only taken away all of the physical spaces for our children to exist in, we're now taking away the electronic ones as well. I'm sure this won't have any negative consequences.

[datashade]

[datashade]