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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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A short note here on what I’m covering and why. The political changes we’re seeing across the world are underpinned by technological ones that are now accelerating. For more than a decade, I’ve been trying to investigate and expose these forces. Since 2016 that’s included following a thread that led from Brexit to Trump via a shady data company called Cambridge Analytica and the revelation of a profound threat exploit at the heart of our democracies. But what’s happening now in the US is a paradigm shift: this is Broligarchy, a concept I coined last summer when I warned that what we were seeing was the proposed merger of Silicon Valley with state power. That has now happened. Writing about this from the UK, it’s clear we have a choice: we help lead the fight back against it. Or it comes for us next. Please share this with family and friends if you feel it’s of value. Thank you, as ever, Carole

Let me say this more clearly: what is happening right now, in America, in real time, is a coup.

This is an information war and this is what a coup now looks like.

Musk didn’t need a tank, guns, soldiers. He had a small crack cyber unit that he sent into the Treasury department last weekend. He now has unknown quantities of the entire US nation’s most sensitive data and potential backdoors into the system going forward. Treasury officials denied that he had access but it then turned out that he did. If it ended there, it would be catastrophic. But that unit - whose personnel include a 19-year-old called “Big Balls” - is now raiding and scorching the federal government, department by department, scraping its digital assets, stealing its data, taking control of the code and blowing up its administrative apparatus as it goes.

This is what an unlawful attack on democracy in the digital age looks like. It didn’t take armed men, just Musk’s taskforce of boy-men who may be dweebs and nerds but all the better to plunder the country’s digital resources. This was an organised, systematic, jailbreak on one of the United States’ most precious and sensitive resources: the private data of its citizens.

In 2019, I appeared in a Netflix documentary, The Great Hack. That’s a good place to start to understand what is going on now, but it wasn’t the great hack. It was among the first wave of major tech exploits of global elections. It was an exemplar of what was possible: the theft and weaponization of 87 million people’s personal data. But this now is the Great Hack. This week is when the operating system of the US was wrenched open and is now controlled by a private citizen under the protection of the President.

If you think I’ve completely lost it, please be advised that I’m far from alone in saying this. The small pools of light in the darkness of this week has been stumbling across individual commentators saying this for the last week. Just because these words are not on the front page in banner headlines of any newspaper doesn’t mean this isn’t not happening. It is.

In fact, there has been relentless, assiduous, detailed reporting in all outlets across America. There are journalists who aren’t eating or sleeping and doing amazing work tracking what’s happening. There is fact after fact after fact about Musk’s illegal pillaging of the federal government. But news organisation leaders are either falling for the distraction story - the most obviously insane one this week being rebuilding Gaza as a luxury resort, a story that dominated headlines and political oxygen for days. Or…what? Being unable to actually believe that this is what an authoritarian takeover looks like? Being unsure of whether you put the headline about the illegal coup d’etat next to a spring season fashion report? Above or below the round-up of best rice cookers? The fact is the front pages look like it’s business as normal when it’s anything but.

This was Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Tuesday. She’s a historian of fascism and authoritarianism at New York University and she said this even before some of this week’s most extreme events had taken place. (A transcript of the rest of her words here.)

“It’s very unusual. In my study of authoritarian states, it's only really after a coup that you see such a speed, such obsessive haste to purge bureaucracy so quickly. Or when somebody is defending themselves, like Erdogan after the coup attempt against him, massive purge immediately. So that's unusual. I don't have another reference point for a private individual coming in, infiltrating, trying to turn government to the benefit of his businesses and locking out and federal employees. It is a coup. I'm a historian of coups, and I would also use that word. So we're in a real emergency situation for our democracy.”

A day later, this was Tim Snyder, Yale, a Yale professor and another great historian of authoritarianism, here: “Of course it’s a coup.”

History was made this week and while reporters are doing incredible work, to understand it our guides are historians, those who’ve lived in authoritarian states and Silicon Valley watchers. They are saying it. What I’ve learned from investigating and reporting on Silicon Valley’s system-level hack of our democracy for eight long years and seeing up close the breathtaking impunity and entitlement of the men who control these companies is that they break laws and they get away with it. And then lie about it afterwards. That’s the model here.

Everything that I’ve ever warned about is happening now. This is it. It’s just happening faster than anyone could have imagined.

It’s not that what’s happening is simply unlawful. This is what David Super, an administrative law professor at Georgetown Law School told the Washington Post.

“So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”

And he’s right. The system can’t and isn’t. Legal challenges are being made and even upheld but there’s no guarantee or even sign that Musk is going to honour them. That’s one of the most chilling points my friend, Mark Bergman, made to me over the weekend.

Last week, I included a voice note from my friend, tech investor turned tech campaigner, Roger McNamee, so you could hear direct from an expert about the latest developments in AI. This week I’ve asked Mark to do the honours.

He’s a lawyer, Washington political insider, and since last summer, he’s been participating in ‘War Game’ exercises with Defense Department officials, three-star generals, former Cabinet Secretaries and governors. In five exercises involving 175 people, they situation-tested possible scenarios of a Trump win. But they didn’t see this. It’s even worse than they feared.

“Those challenges have been in respect of shutting down agencies, firing federal employees and engaging in the most egregious hack of government. It all at the hand hands of DOGE, Musk and his band of tech engineers. DC right now is shell-shocked. It is a government town, USA, ID, the FBI, the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, CIA, no federal agency will be spared the revenge and retribution tours in full swing, and huge numbers have been put on administrative leave, reassigned or fired, and the private sector is as much at risk, particularly NGOs and civil society organizations. The more high-profile violate the law, which is why the courts have been quick to enjoin actions. “So yes, we've experienced a coup, not the old fashioned kind, no tanks or mobs, but an undemocratic and hostile takeover of government. It is cruel, it is petty. It can be brutal. It is at once chaotic and surgical. We said the institutions held in 2020 but behind institutions or people, and the extent to which all manner of power structures have preemptively obeyed is hugely worrying. There are legions ready to carry out the Trump agenda. The question is, will the rule of law hold?”

Last Tuesday, Musk tried to lay off the entire CIA. That’s the government body with the slogan ‘We are the nation’s first line of defense’. Every single employee has been offered an unlawful ‘buyout’ - what we call redundancy in the UK - or what 200 former employees - spies - have said is blatant attempt to rebuild it as a political enforcement unit. Over the weekend, the Washington Post reports that new appointees are being presented with “loyalty tests”.

Musk’s troops - because that’s what they are, mercenaries - are acting in criminal, unlawful, unconstitutional ways. Organisations are acting quickly, taking lawsuits, and for now the courts are holding. But the key essential question is whether their rulings can be enforced with a political weaponized Department of Justice and FBI. What Mark Bergman told me (and is in the extended note below) is that they’ve known since the summer that there would be almost no way of pushing back against Trump. This politicisation of all branches of law enforcement creates a vacuum at the heart of the state. As he says in that note, the ramifications of this are little understood outside the people inside Washington who study this for a living.

And at least some of what DOGE is doing can never be undone. Musk, a private citizen, now has vast clouds of citizens’ data, their personal information and it seems likely, classified material. When data is out there, it’s out there. That genie can never be put back into the bottle.

Itt’s what it’s possible to do with that data, that the real nightmare begins. What machine learning algorithms and highly personalised targeting can do. It’s a digital coup. An information coup. And we have to understand what that means. Our fleshy bodies still inhabit earthly spaces but we are all, also, digital beings too. We live in a hybrid reality. And for more than a decade we have been targets of hybrid warfare, waged by hostile nation states whose methodology has been aped and used against us by political parties in a series of disrupted elections marked by illegal behaviour and a lack of any enforcement. But this now takes it to the next level.

It facilitates a concentration of wealth and power - because data is power - of a kind the world has never seen before.

Facebook’s actual corporate motto until 2014 taken from words Mark Zuckerberg spoke was “Move fast and break things”. That phrase has passed into commonplace: we know it, we quote it, we also fail to understand what that means. It means: act illegally and get away with it.

And that is the history of Silicon Valley. Its development and cancerous growth is marked by series of larcenous acts each more grotesque than the last. And Musk’s career is an exemplar of that, a career that has involved rampant criminality, gross invasions of privacy, stock market manipulation. And lies. The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently suing Musk for failing to disclose his ownership stock before he bought Twitter. The biggest mistake right now is to believe anything he says.

Every time, these companies have broken the law, they have simply gotten away with it. I know I’m repeating this, but it’s central to understanding both the mindset and what’s happening on the ground. And no-one exemplifies that more than Musk. The worst that has happened to him is a fine. A slap on the wrist. An insignificant line on a balance sheet. The “cost of doing business”.

On Friday, Robert Reich, the former United States Secretary of Labor, who’s been an essential voice this week, told the readers of his Substack to act now and call their representatives.

“Friends, we are in a national emergency. This is a coup d’etat. Elon Musk was never authorized by Congress to do anything that he’s doing, he was never even confirmed by Congress, his so-called Department of Government Efficiency was never authorized by Congress. Your representatives, your senators and Congressmen have never given him authority to do what he is doing, to take over government departments, to take over entire government agencies, to take over government payments system itself to determine for himself what is an appropriate payment. To arrogate to himself the authority to have your social security number, your private information? Please. Listen, call Congress now.”

It’s a coup

I found myself completely poleaxed on Wednesday. I read this piece on the New York Times website first thing in the morning, a thorough and alarming analysis of headlined “Trump Brazenly Defies Laws in Escalating Executive Power Grab”. It quoted Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at New York University, “programmatic sabotage and rampant lawlessness.” It was displayed prominently on the front page of the New York Times but it was also just one piece among many, a small weak signal amid the overpowering noise.

There’s another word for an “Executive Power Grab”, it’s a coup. And newspapers need to actually write that in big black letters on their front pages and tell their tired, busy, overwhelmed, distracted, scared readers what is happening. That none of this is “business as usual.”

Over on the Guardian’s UK website on Wednesday, there was not a single mention on the front page of what was happening. Trump’s Gaza spectacular diversion strategy drowned out its quotient of American news. We just weren’t seeing what’s happening in the seat of government of our closest ally. As a private citizen mounted a takeover of the cornerstone superpower of the international rules-based order, our crucial NATO ally, our biggest single trading partner, the UK government didn’t even apparently notice.

The downstream potential international consequences of what is happening in America are profound and terrifying. That our government and much of the media is asleep at the wheel is a reason to be more not less terrified. Musk has made his intentions towards our democracy and national security quite clear. What he hasn’t yet had is the backing of the US state. That is shortly going to change. One of the first major stand-offs will be UK and EU tech regulation. I hope I’m wrong but it seems pretty obvious that’s what Musk’s Starmer-aimed tweets are all about. There seems no world in which the EU and the UK aren’t headed for the mother of all trade wars.

And that’s before we even consider the national security ramifications. The prime minister should be convening Cobra now. The Five Eyes - the intelligence sharing network of the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada - is already likely breached. Trump is going to do individual deals with all major trading partners that’s going to involve preposterous but real threats, including likely dangling the US’s membership of NATO over our heads all while Russia watches, waits and knows that we’ve done almost nothing to prepare. Plans to increase our defence spending have been made but not yet implemented. Our intelligence agencies do understand the precipice we’re on but there’s no indication the government is paying any attention to them. The risks are profound. The international order as we know it is collapsing in real time.

It’s a coup

We all know that the the first thing that happens when a dictator seizes power is that he (it’s always a he) takes control of the radio station. Musk did that months ago. It wasn’t that Elon Musk buying Twitter pre-ordained what is now happening but it made it possible. And it was the moment, minutes after Trump was shot and he went full-in on his campaign that signalled the first shot fired in his digital takeover.

It’s both a mass propaganda machine and also the equivalent of an information drone with a deadly payload. It’s a weapon that’s already been turned on journalists and news organisations this week. There’s much more to come.

On Friday, Musk started following Wikileaks on Twitter. Hours later, twisted, weaponized leaks from USAID began.

This is going to get so much worse. Musk and MAGA will see this as the opening of the Stasi archive. It’s not. It’s rocketfuel for a witchhunt. It’s hybrid warfare against the enemies of the state. It’s going to be ugly and cruel and its targets are going to need help and support. Hands across the water to my friends at OCCRP, the Overseas Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an investigative journalism organisation that uncovers transnational crime, that’s been in Musk’s sights this weekend, one of hundreds of media organisations around the world whose funding has been slashed overnight.

It’s a coup

By now you may feel scared and helpless. It’s how I felt this week. I had the same sick feeling I had watching UK political coverage before the pandemic. The government was just going to ignore the wave of deaths rippling from China to Italy and pretend it wasn’t happening? Really? That’s the plan?

This is another pandemic. Or a Chernobyl. It’s a bomb at the heart of the international order whose toxic fallout is going to inevitably drift our way.

My internal alarm bell, a sense of urgency and anxiety goes even further back. To early 2017, when I uncovered information about Cambridge Analytica’s illegal hack of data from Facebook while the company’s VP, Steve Bannon, was then on the National Security Council. That concept of highly personalised data in the control of a ruthless and political operator was what tripped my emergency wires. That is a reality now.

The point is that the shock and awe is meant to make us feel helpless. So I’m telling a bit of my own personal story here. Because part of what temporarily paralyzed me last week was that this is all happening while my own small corner of the mainstream media is collapsing in on itself too. The event that I’ve spent the last eight years warning about has come to pass and in a month, 100+ of my colleagues at the Guardian will be out of the door and my employment will be terminated. I will no longer have the platform of the news organisation where I’ve done my entire body of work to date and was able to communicate to a global audience.

But then, it’s all connected. We are living through an information crisis. It’s what underpins everything. In some ways, this happening now is not surprising at all. Moreover, many of the people who I see as essential voices during this crisis (including those above) are doing that effectively and independently from Substack as I will try to continue to do.

And, the key thing that the last eight years has given me is information. The lawsuit I fought for four years as a result of doing this work very almost floored me. But it didn’t. And I’ve learned essential skills during those years. It was part of what powered me to fight for the rights of Guardian journalists during our strike this December.

The next fightback against Musk and the Broligarchy has to draw from the long, long fight for workers rights which in turn influenced the fight for civil rights that must now power us on as we face the great unknown. What comes next has to be a fight for our data rights, our human rights.

This was former Guardian journalist Gary Younge on our picket line and I’ve thought about these words a lot. You have to fight even if you won’t necessarily win. Power is almost never given up freely.

If you value any of this and want me to be able to continue, I’d be really grateful if you signed up, free, or even better, paid subscription. And I’d also urge you to sign up also for the Citizen Dispatch, that’s the newsletter from the non-profit I founded that campaigns around these issues. There is much more it can and needs to do.

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bloopitynoot · 9 hours ago

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What I Read This Week: 06/15/2025

I am a librarian, and unrelated to stereotypes about my profession, I do read a metric shit-ton in a week. Most of it is fanfiction but hey, I thought maybe it's time I share my reads?

This is what I read this week:

1. The Spark That Ignites the Embers by PyrrhaIphis (501,188)

Summary:

Jiang Cheng wakes up on the Yiling mountainside slightly earlier than in canon. Like a butterfly flapping its wings, this changes everything. Wei Wuxian is in the Burial Mounds for hours instead of months, Wen Qing and Wen Ning join the Jiang Clan, and we witness the whole greatly-altered Sunshot Campaign. As to what *follows* the Sunshot Campaign, it's even more dramatically altered than the war itself. (And it takes up more than half the fic...)

While this is primarily CQL canon, it's also blending in novel canon, particularly in terms of characters and places that hadn't been introduced as of the scene when Jiang Cheng awoke after the golden core transfer. Names of places and techniques are sometimes taken from the Netflix subtitles and sometimes from the official novel translation, based largely on which version of the name I liked better. ;)

------------------ Fic is now locked (ie viewable only by users with accounts) again to prevent any future bots from scraping it (again) for AI training data.

omg this absolute epic quest of a read was so damn good! half a million words! what!

it is mostly a war fic but I am here for the guanshan-anigans and political maneuverings.

it was complicated, it was hopeful, it was emotional as hell

I love how the chenqing aspect rolled out in this fic- it was so complex and by god was it a slow burn

10's across the board.

2. Recreational Venting by TGP (15, 865)

Summary:

After meeting Luo Binghe a whole two years early in Jinlan City, Shen Qingqiu makes the executive decision to relax at the weapons shop with wine left in his room at the weapons shop. He's going to die anyway, he might as well do it lubricated! Unfortunately, Luo Binghe chooses that night for them to have a talk and learns way more than he was expecting.

(Or, that time getting shitfaced drunk fixed all Shen Qingqiu's problems)

This was very sweet, very cute

Bless Binghe for being CLEAR

Drunk cumplane are a hot mess LOL

Good read!

3. you could write a book on how to ruin someone’s perfect day by livinginaworldofnoise (11,157)

Summary:

“Ask a Librarian” Chat Log Archive

WEI WUXIAN: my doctor diagnosed me with librariphobia so i can’t come return my books it’s a very serious condition LIBRARIAN: Fear of libraries? Ridiculous. WEI WUXIAN: fear of librarians actually! i can’t get within 1000ft of them LIBRARIAN: Then it’s best for us to stop conversing. WEI WUXIAN: but then how will i get my fines cleared? LIBRARIAN: You are not getting your fines cleared. WEI WUXIAN: this is extremely cruel and unusual LIBRARIAN: If you say so. [Librarian has disconnected.]

OR: delinquent library patron!wwx's favorite pastime is pestering librarian!lwj through the online chat

This was EXQUISITE!

I'm not going to lie this read was super self indulgent; my librarian heart sung. Also- most of the patron things mentioned are super fucking real XD Libraries are rogue as hell when it comes to patron interactions let me tell you.

This was so fucking funny - so relatable, so niche. I sent it to all my library pals who have read mdzs.

1000/10

4. Shen Yuan: Plant Life, Plant Wife by Claribelle (39, 490)

Summary: When Shen Yuan transmigrates into Fei Qing, a throwaway wife character in Luo Bing-ge's harem, he thinks he will be living the high life. How wrong he was. Now he is being forced to share a brain with a sarcastic system, and literally starts dying if he leaves a remote mountain that he is supposed to protect, and a thousand mysteries surround his new life. What terrible luck!!

This was a solid read!

I love reading trans stories- this was more like a trans trans story (eheheh) and I was here for all of it. But truly trans Shen yuan was handled beautifully and it made me emotional at times

Happy endings all around!

Also kind of neat to read a story set in post merge PIDW

5. must love (my) buns by saraubs (33,116)

Summary:

Lan Huan scrolls through Wei Ying’s profile, and the gentle tap of his finger against the screen shudders through Lan Zhan like the screech of a misplayed note. His whole body is tense, and he exhales slowly, working to unclench his jaw by degrees.

“It says here,” Lan Huan says with characteristic good humour, “that he’s looking for fun.” He nudges Lan Zhan with the tip of his toe. “You could do with some fun in your life.”

Lan Zhan could do with a new brother. “No,” he says, shifting out of Lan Huan’s range. “Thank you.”

---

When his brother creates a dating profile for him, Lan Zhan doesn't expect to match with the most obnoxious vendor at the Farmers' Market. Wei Ying is looking for fun, Lan Zhan wants out of this mess, and Lan Huan just wants his brother to be happy.

(farmer wwx, lonely businessman lwj, much mutual pining)

God this was also another banger of a fic.

I love when we get neurodivergent lan wangji! and bonus he and a-yuan sign!

a little bit of emotional angst and slight miscommunication that made me cry at work, but it works out in the end

Happiest of endings!

6. Home In Your Arms by eeveev (2,276)

Summary:

Caleb's hand reached for the Sending Stone on his belt. Of the several Sending Stones he carried, this was one of the oldest. He ran his thumb over its face, made smooth by years of use, and lifted it to his lips. "We've returned—successful, all of us in one piece. At the Blooming Grove. Safe, but out of teleports." He pressed the stone closer and whispered, "See you soon."

After defeating the Weave Mind, Caleb reunites with Essek.

The cutest little ficlet

I am so soft for these two!

Essek as doting makes me soft- this hot boi is not allowed to worry about his husband

8. Heaven Official's Blessing by MXTX Chapter 131-134

Summary: Born the crown prince of a prosperous kingdom, Xie Lian was renowned for his beauty, strength, and purity. His years of dedication and noble deeds allowed him to ascend to godhood. But those who rise, can also fall…and fall he does, cast from the Heavens again and again and banished to the mortal realm.

Eight hundred years after his mortal life, Xie Lian has ascended to godhood for the third time. Now only a lowly scrap collector, he is dispatched to wander the earthly realm to take on tasks appointed by the heavens to pay back debts and maintain his divinity. Aided by old friends and foes alike, and graced with the company of a mysterious young man with whom he feels an instant connection, Xie Lian must confront the horrors of his past in order to dispel the curse of his present.

I have officially finished the main story! Just finishing up the extras. God I love this series so much.

you can follow along on the Bloopitynoot reads TGCF tag

NO SPOILERS PLS.

I am so soft for Hualian

That's what I read this week!

I spent the majority of this week reading that GIANT MDZS fic, but I did manage to throw in a few smaller (for me) fics too.

I think the next few weeks will be the same- one large banger (I have so many big ones to work through) with more smaller fics while I work through the MFL list.

As usual I will gladly accept any recs you have happily and gratefully- though it may take me some time to get to them; MDZS (wangxian - but also most other pairings) or SVSSS (shen yuan et al pairings - or others tbh I am not picky!)

If you want a personalized fic list I am offering lists for Wangxian (some other MDZS pairings) and bingqiu (and some other SVSSS pairings) -just send me a dm with your theme and criteria! If I have fics that I have read that fit the vibe, I will happily rec a list <3

Until next week!

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hiccupmistress · 2 years ago

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So earlier today, everyone on twitter got all confused because everything was showing a “rate limit exceeded” error message with no further clarification whatsoever. Then, some hours later, Mister dumb-dumb claims its “totally deliberate u guys” to “address extreme levels of data scraping”, and limiting people to seeing 600 posts per day. That might sound like a lot, but the way Twitter loads its feed, that basically means you get about 30 seconds of usage.

So basically, Mister dumb-dumb spent an unearthly amount of money to buy one of the biggest, most relied-upon social networks in the world, fired all the people who actually worked there, changed the verification badges so instead of confirming celeb accounts are legit, they instead mean “my cult is paying me $8″, claimed an adjective is a slur and is now massively restricting people using the service.

He does claim this is “temporary”, but given this idiot’s track record, he probably doesn’t know how to fix it. Especially since he laid off most of the actual software engineers.

Twitter has, for years, been a primary platform for both communities as well as keeping up on news. If people can barely see any tweets per day, that all goes right out the window.

Twitter got so big largely because it was convenient to get those things on one feed. Netflix got big when it started because it was convenient to have everything in one place, it reduced the amount of piracy that was going on for film/TV because it was easier and more convenient than the old torrenting services of the day. Now, every last studio wants to cash in with its own streaming service, and people are going back to piracy because its more convenient that having 500 different monthly subscriptions. This is the social media version of that. Mister dumb-dumb took one of the most convenient social media platforms and utterly mangled it, so user retention is understandably going through the floor.

Anyway, that means a lot of the communities I’ve been a part of are splitting all over the place to countless third party platforms. I’m not 100% sure yet, but I might be making more of an effort to get used to Tumblr. I’ve never quite felt confident posting here, but its currently the best alternative; Reddit is also going down the toilet with their API changes, Facebook is more built for people you know IRL rather than fandom communities (I never particularly liked the groups systems there), Discord is utterly alien to me and I simply cannot learn how to make the most of it and stuff like Mastodon or random-twitter-knockoff-that-my-mutuals-aren’t-bothering-to-tell-me-what-it-is are too niche and a bit weird.

So yeah, this feed might become more active with videogame screenshots, Star Trek episode thoughts and opinions, neurodivergent ramblings and whatever else, idk.

EDIT: News article with a bit more detail if you want

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66077195

#twitter ded #mister dumb-dumb broke twitter for good #social media's gone all weird #i just want my online community spaces #i need somewhere to talk about my hyperfixations #trust your software engineers #i'm still not entirely sure how to use tumblr

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hollow-prior · 6 months ago

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[Image Description: A series of screenshots.

Image 1: A post on r/Ao3 on Reddit by u/EasterKingston. The post is titled "'Netflix of audiobooks' scrapes thousands of fanworks off Ao3 without permission. Yours, likely, included."

Image 2: The preview for a website titled word-stream. The page is titled "You & Me & Holiday Wine - WordStream".

Image 3: A screenshot from the website WordStream. The word "ekingston" is entered into the search bar. There are two results. One named "You & Me & Holiday Wine" and the other named "The Shape of Soup". Both have over 80 thousand views.

Image 4: Another screenshot from the same site. The name "Kara Danvers" is entered into the search bar. There are twenty results from a variety of authors that fill up the page.

Image 5: A sent text reading: "I followed you here from Reddit, where I was made aware of the truly awesome work your project Copyknight has been doing. I just discovered the website/app word-stream.com today-it's a site that's seemingly scraped thousands of works off ao3 and offers audiobook versions of them, presumably for a fee. It looks like it only went live in October, and I don't see much chatter about it (or contact information) anywhere. I was wondering if you'd heard from it/could offer advice on how to go about getting our works taken down?"

Image 6: A screenshot of a contact form being filled out. The form is on transformativeworks.org and appears to be a contact form. The subject is "New app committing grand-scale copyright infringement of works hosted on Ao3". The message reads: "Hello, A new website/app hosted on https://word-stream.com/ has scraped hundreds (thousands?) of works off Ao3 without permission, mine among them. Is there anything Ao3 can do to help us getting our works taken down? Thank you for your response! Easter."

Image 7: A series of interspersed text and screenshots. Text reads: "If you try to click on any of the sites, you get a link to the AppStore app, which is called "WordStream - Audiobooks". There is a screenshot of the app in the app store. The creator's name is Ofek Weitzman. Text reads: "Who is Ofek Weitzman? Apparently he's also known as Cliff Weitzman, the CEO of Speechify, an AI Voice generator app famous for its partnership with Snoop. Also, Cliff Weitzman is named as the copyright holder at the bottom:" A screenshot showing the copyright holder as Cliff Weitzman. Text reads: "If you search for Ofek/Cliff Weitzman, you find his name in the terms and conditions for Speechify." A screenshot showing the terms and conditions including the name Ofek Weitzman as the individual to address a notice of dispute to. Text reads: "Strange that someone with a legitimate company with a partnership with Brandon Sanderson would put their name behind a shady company stealing works from fanfic writers, but it may be worth reaching out to him on X. Best case scenario is that someone has stolen the name for an app, but in that case, it would be good for him to know. Otherwise, it would be good to start a dialogue about how authors can get their works taken down from this site!"

Image 8: A screenshot of a Tumblr post from user fazedlight (Fazed Light). It shows an image of domain registry data for Word-Stream. Text reads: Some investigation so far: 1. I don't see a way to contact them directly. This is probably by design, since they are clearly shamelessly committing copyright infringement. 2. I ran "Who is Word-Stream" in the terminal and this is some of the information that came up. The domain was registered via Go Daddy.com and their nameservers are run by CloudFlare.com. 3. I am NOT a lawyer. My basic understanding is that fanfic authors own copyright on their own fics, and are therefore entitled to register DMCA notices, but I do not understand what the risks are. That said, GoDaddy links how to go about filing a copyright infringement, and so does CloudFlare. My understanding is that DMCA notice information (Your personal information) gets shared with the offender, so please do your research/get actual legal guidance first! It's worth noting: I see no buzz about this website - not on Twitter, or Tumblr, or Reddit, etc. So I'm hoping that very few people are using it. The site itself is pretty new (The screenshot shows it was registered in June this year).

Image 9: An anonymous Tumblr asks that reads: "Re: word-stream - Check out the listing on the Apple App Store which will list the App Developer - Cliff Weitzman. The privacy policy lists the email support[at]word-stream[dot]com. The seller (Weitzman) is associated with a speech to text AI company called Speechify. The domain is hosted by GoDaddy. I have no idea what complaints can be filed. It may be possible to file something with GoDaddy or Apple about the app/site breaking their TOS in some way. The Organization for Transformative Works who have legit lawyers who may be a better resource. Anyway, what a huge insult to writers everywhere. Damn.

Image 10: An email from Rebecca Tushnet to easter.kingston. The subject is "Your message about WordStream". The email reads: "Thank you for reaching out. The Archive of Our Own does not claim copyright in any works posted to AO3 so authors have to submit their own takedown notices to sites reposting their works without authorization. The AO3 does not allow commercial reuse, so we do attempt to prevent large scale scraping, but techical measures are not foolproof. We will look into the site and see if there are further measures we can take. Yours, Rebecca Tushnet."

Image 11: A screenshot showing three subscription plans to choose from: A month long for 93 cents per day or a discounted price of 39 cents, a three month long for 53 cents per day or a discounted price of 19 cents, and a six month long for 55 cents per day or a discounted price of 15 cents. The three month plan is listed as most popular.

Image 12: A Tumblr post by user ekingston. It reads: "Christ". A screenshot of a Tumblr reply by user cliffweitzman (Cliff Weitzman) is below. It reads: "Hey everybody, the person behind word stream here. Please email me if we have a peace of work that is yours you don't want up there and I will take it down immediately [email protected] I am dyslexic and built word stream to help other students like me who have dyslexia, adhd, low vision, concussions, anxiety, who are second language learners, or who also love listening to fan fiction but have a job that makes their hands/eyes busy but ears free. Word Stream is free for anyone to use. The next iteration will also include free text to speech, we have a paid tier for ppl who want to use high quality text to speech which is priced at the minimum amount we can to cover server/gpu costs to power the text to speech." The same user has replied to the original comment. Their reply reads: "I apologize to anyone who saw this and was upset this in no way is our intention. We support all valid take down notices and will always make it right if you reach out to us with the name of your work. support@word- stream.com". Text in the original Tumblr post reads: "This man is asking us to do the work for him, all of us, individually. My man. You had an Al scrape THE ENTIRETY OF ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN to take works without our permission. This is ON YOU. friends, if you feel like spending your day sending individual notices to this man, please go ahead. I do NOT advise you sharing personal information that you wouldn't usually share online though. Also, as a person with a learning disability of her own, and the wife of an elementary teacher who accommodates kids with disabilities like these, using your dyslexia as an excuse to steal people's work without permission is DETESTABLE."

Image 13: Text reads: "cliffweitzman (Cliff Weitzman) replied to your text post." The reply reads: "Hey everybody, the person behind word stream here: I am dyslexic and built word stream to help other students like me who have dyslexia, ADHD, vision challenges, concussions, or anxiety to access fan-fiction, because for us, reading with our eyes can be very challenging and there are no audiobooks for fan fiction typically. Word Stream is free for anyone to use. There is a paid plan for ppl who want to use high quality text to speech which is priced at the minimum amount we can to cover server/gpu costs to power the text to speech. The next iteration will also include free text to speech but with a lower quality bar. I apologize to anyone who saw this and was upset this in no way is our intention. We support all valid take down notices an d will always make it right if you reach out to us with the name of your work. [email protected] Please email me if we have a peace of work that is yours you don't want up there and I will take it down immediately [email protected]. A future release will also add the ability to tip authors so writers can make money not from selling the works but via tips from grateful readers, the ability for authors to build and communicate with an email list of readers, ability for authors to see retention graphs of where users drop off during reading, and abilities to authors to easily manage their works. We are strong supporters of second language learners (non native speakers of English), and of users who love fan fiction but who have a job that makes their hands/eyes busy but ears free. Once again I apologize for a beta product that got more attention that it ha d any right to before it was complete and for the clearly tone deaf wording which we are fixing to make sure communication is better about take down notices. Warmly, Cliff If you can, pl ease upvote or comment on the post so others can see the e mail they should message to have anything they don't want posted taken down immediately Word Stream."

Image 14: A Reddit comment on r/Ao3 by user word-stream. It reads: "Hey everybody, the person behind word stream here: I am dyslexic and built word stream to help other students like me who have dyslexia, ADHD, vision challenges, concussions, or anxiety to access fan-fiction, because for us, reading with our eyes can be very challenging and there are no audiobooks for fan fiction typically. Word Stream is free for anyone to use. There is a paid plan for ppl who want to use high quality text to speech which is priced at the minimum amount we can to cover server/gpu costs to power the text to speech. The next iteration will also include free text to speech but with a lower quality bar, I apologize to anyone who saw this and was upset this in no way is our intention. We support all valid take down notices and will always make it right if you reach out to us with the name of your work, [email protected] Please email me if we have a peace of work that is yours you don't want up there and I will take it down immediately support@@word-stream.com A future release will also add the ability to tip authors so writers can make money not from selling the works but via tips from grateful readers, the ability for authors to build and communicate with an email list of readers, ability for authors to see retention graphs of where users drop off during reading, and abilities to authors to easily manage their works. We are strong supporters of second language learners (non native speakers of English), and of users who love fan fiction but who have a job that makes their hands/eyes busy but ears free. Once again I apologize for a beta product that got more attention that it had any right to before it was complete and for the clearly tone deaf wording which we are fixing to make sure communication is better about take down notices. Warmly, Cliff."

Image 15: A Reddit comment from user Electronic_Dog_9526. It reads: "Word Stream's team have apologize for a beta product that got more attention that it had any right to before it was complete and for the clearly tone deaf wording which they are fixing to make sure communication is better about take down notices. They are trying to make the internet including fan fiction accessible to students with dyslexia, ADHD, and vision challenges, and it is free to use. Anyone can read on word stream for free. There is a paid tier that enables audio mode: this pays for the expensive GPUs needed for making the audio. They share they support all valid take down notices and will make it right if you reach out with the name of your work to [email protected]." The comment has two downvotes.

Image 16: A partial screenshot of a Reddit post. It has 3800 upvotes, 500 comments, and 7 awards. It reads: "FINAL EDIT: I'm turning off notifications for this post, because it doesn't look like many people are reading to the end and I keep getting comments from people who are unable to find their fic or expressing how relieved they are their works 'aren't important enough to be stolen'. I did see reports that the fanwork doesn't seem to be removed, just hidden, which is pretty much what I expected; obviously a guy who would rather make money letting Al and fanfic writers do the work for him wouldn't want to undo the little effort he put in putting the database together in the first place (all those wonderfully disfigured Al-generated covers would go to waste!) so I'll reiterate what I said in one of my comments: I'll be keeping my eye on this, and I think you should too. I hate that we need this kind of constant vigilance but let's face it, tech bros have been looking at fanfic with an envious eye for some time now and even if it isn't this guy, someone else will inevitably pop up with the same new & brilliant idea to make money off of fanwork creators. We'll just have to keep not letting them get away with it. For today, I'm counting the fanwork being made inaccessible as a collective win."

End ID.]

[Plain Text: Text in red reads: "***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS."]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using

his dyslexia;

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there.

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain;

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again.

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice.

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later:

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether.

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them.

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that.

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation.

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

#fandom culture #fanfic culture #ao3 culture #ai in fandom #described #image description #described by me(at)

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realdataapiservices · 5 days ago

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rajaganapathi114 · 7 days ago

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Unlocking Data Science's Potential: Transforming Data into Perceptive Meaning

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apotac · 8 days ago

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Data Science Trending in 2025

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Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that combines scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data. It is a blend of various tools, algorithms, and machine learning principles with the goal to discover hidden patterns from raw data.

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Manufacturing: Predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization.

Transportation: Route optimization, autonomous vehicles.

Entertainment: Content recommendation on platforms like Netflix and Spotify.

Challenges in Data Science

Data Quality: Poor data can lead to inaccurate results.

Data Privacy and Ethics: Ensuring responsible use of data and compliance with regulations.

Skill Gap: Requires multidisciplinary knowledge in statistics, programming, and domain expertise.

Scalability: Handling and processing vast amounts of data efficiently.

Future of Data Science

The future promises further integration of artificial intelligence and automation in data science workflows. Explainable AI, augmented analytics, and real-time data processing are areas of rapid growth.

As data continues to grow exponentially, the importance of data science in guiding strategic decisions and innovation across sectors will only increase.

Conclusion

Data Science is a transformative field that unlocks the power of data to solve real-world problems. Through a combination of techniques from statistics, computer science, and domain knowledge, data scientists help organizations make smarter decisions, innovate, and gain a competitive edge.

Whether you are a student, professional, or business leader, understanding data science and its potential can open doors to exciting opportunities and advancements in technology and society.

#jobs #apotac #data science #course

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arctechnolabs1 · 12 days ago

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Netflix Shows Streaming Dataset – Scraping Netflix OTT Media Data

Explore the Netflix Shows Streaming Dataset with powerful tools for Web Scraping Netflix OTT Media Data—ideal for trends, genres, ratings & more.

Read More >> https://www.arctechnolabs.com/netflix-shows-streaming-datasets.php

#NetflixShowsStreamingDataset #WebScrapingNetflixOTTMediaData #ScrapeNetflixStreamingData #MobileAppScrapingServices #ExpertOTTStreamingPlatformData #NetflixStreamingDataset #ScrapeNetflixMoviesTVShowsData #ArcTechnolabs

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korshubudemycoursesblog · 20 days ago

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Unlock Your Coding Potential: Mastering Python, Pandas, and NumPy for Absolute Beginners

Ever thought learning programming was out of your reach? You're not alone. Many beginners feel overwhelmed when they first dive into the world of code. But here's the good news — Python, along with powerful tools like Pandas and NumPy, makes it easier than ever to start your coding journey. And yes, you can go from zero to confident coder without a tech degree or prior experience.

Let’s explore why Python is the best first language to learn, how Pandas and NumPy turn you into a data powerhouse, and how you can get started right now — even if you’ve never written a single line of code.

Why Python is the Ideal First Language for Beginners

Python is known as the "beginner's language" for a reason. Its syntax is simple, readable, and intuitive — much closer to plain English than other programming languages.

Whether you're hoping to build apps, automate your work, analyze data, or explore machine learning, Python is the gateway to all of it. It powers Netflix’s recommendation engine, supports NASA's simulations, and helps small businesses automate daily tasks.

Still unsure if it’s the right pick? Here’s what makes Python a no-brainer:

Simple to learn, yet powerful

Used by professionals across industries

Backed by a massive, helpful community

Endless resources and tools to learn from

And when you combine Python with NumPy and Pandas, you unlock the true magic of data analysis and manipulation.

The Power of Pandas and NumPy in Data Science

Let’s break it down.

🔹 What is NumPy?

NumPy (short for “Numerical Python”) is a powerful library that makes mathematical and statistical operations lightning-fast and incredibly efficient.

Instead of using basic Python lists, NumPy provides arrays that are more compact, faster, and capable of performing complex operations in just a few lines of code.

Use cases:

Handling large datasets

Performing matrix operations

Running statistical analysis

Working with machine learning algorithms

🔹 What is Pandas?

If NumPy is the engine, Pandas is the dashboard. Built on top of NumPy, Pandas provides dataframes — 2D tables that look and feel like Excel spreadsheets but offer the power of code.

With Pandas, you can:

Load data from CSV, Excel, SQL, or JSON

Filter, sort, and group your data

Handle missing or duplicate data

Perform data cleaning and transformation

Together, Pandas and NumPy give you superpowers to manage, analyze, and visualize data in ways that are impossible with Excel alone.

The Beginner’s Journey: Where to Start?

You might be wondering — “This sounds amazing, but how do I actually learn all this?”

That’s where the Mastering Python, Pandas, NumPy for Absolute Beginners course comes in. This beginner-friendly course is designed specifically for non-techies and walks you through everything you need to know — from setting up Python to using Pandas like a pro.

No prior coding experience? Perfect. That’s exactly who this course is for.

You’ll learn:

The fundamentals of Python: variables, loops, functions

How to use NumPy for array operations

Real-world data cleaning and analysis using Pandas

Building your first data project step-by-step

And because it’s self-paced and online, you can learn anytime, anywhere.

Real-World Examples: How These Tools Are Used Every Day

Learning Python, Pandas, and NumPy isn’t just for aspiring data scientists. These tools are used across dozens of industries:

1. Marketing

Automate reports, analyze customer trends, and predict buying behavior using Pandas.

2. Finance

Calculate risk models, analyze stock data, and create forecasting models with NumPy.

3. Healthcare

Track patient data, visualize health trends, and conduct research analysis.

4. Education

Analyze student performance, automate grading, and track course engagement.

5. Freelancing/Side Projects

Scrape data from websites, clean it up, and turn it into insights — all with Python.

Whether you want to work for a company or freelance on your own terms, these skills give you a serious edge.

Learning at Your Own Pace — Without Overwhelm

One of the main reasons beginners give up on coding is because traditional resources jump into complex topics too fast.

But the Mastering Python, Pandas, NumPy for Absolute Beginners course is designed to be different. It focuses on real clarity and hands-on practice — no fluff, no overwhelming jargon.

What you get:

Short, focused video lessons

Real-world datasets to play with

Assignments and quizzes to test your knowledge

Certificate of completion

It’s like having a patient mentor guiding you every step of the way.

Here’s What You’ll Learn Inside the Course

Let’s break it down:

✅ Python Essentials

Understanding variables, data types, and functions

Writing conditional logic and loops

Working with files and exceptions

✅ Mastering NumPy

Creating and manipulating arrays

Broadcasting and vectorization

Math and statistical operations

✅ Data Analysis with Pandas

Reading and writing data from various formats

Cleaning and transforming messy data

Grouping, aggregating, and pivoting data

Visualizing insights using built-in methods

By the end, you won’t just “know Python” — you’ll be able to do things with it. Solve problems, build projects, and impress employers.

Why This Skillset Is So In-Demand Right Now

Python is the most popular programming language in the world right now — and for good reason. Tech giants like Google, Netflix, Facebook, and NASA use it every day.

But here’s what most people miss: It’s not just about tech jobs. Knowing how to manipulate and understand data is now a core skill across marketing, operations, HR, journalism, and more.

According to LinkedIn and Glassdoor:

Python is one of the most in-demand skills in 2025

Data analysis is now required in 70% of digital roles

Entry-level Python developers earn an average of $65,000 to $85,000/year

When you combine Python with Pandas and NumPy, you make yourself irresistible to hiring managers and clients.

What Students Are Saying

People just like you have used this course to kickstart their tech careers, land internships, or even launch freelance businesses.

Here’s what learners love about it:

“The lessons were beginner-friendly and not overwhelming.”

“The Pandas section helped me automate weekly reports at my job!”

“I didn’t believe I could learn coding, but this course proved me wrong.”

What You’ll Be Able to Do After the Course

By the time you complete Mastering Python, Pandas, NumPy for Absolute Beginners, you’ll be able to:

Analyze data using Pandas and Python

Perform advanced calculations using NumPy arrays

Clean, organize, and visualize messy datasets

Build mini-projects that show your skills

Apply for jobs or gigs with confidence

It’s not about becoming a “coder.” It’s about using the power of Python to make your life easier, your work smarter, and your skills future-proof.

Final Thoughts: This Is Your Gateway to the Future

Everyone starts somewhere.

And if you’re someone who has always felt curious about tech but unsure where to begin — this is your sign.

Python, Pandas, and NumPy aren’t just tools — they’re your entry ticket to a smarter career, side income, and creative freedom.

Ready to get started?

👉 Click here to dive into Mastering Python, Pandas, NumPy for Absolute Beginners and take your first step into the coding world. You’ll be amazed at what you can build.

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actowizsolutions0 · 2 months ago

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Netflix Viewer Trends Shaping Content Strategy in 2025

In a world where content is consumed on demand, Netflix continues to lead the charge in shaping digital entertainment. With millions of global viewers streaming content every second, the Netflix streaming dataset has become a goldmine for uncovering viewer preferences, predicting trends, and making data-driven decisions.

As businesses and creators compete to grab attention in the crowded OTT space, understanding Netflix viewer behavior is more crucial than ever.

The Power of Streaming Analytics

Behind every popular show or movie on Netflix lies an ocean of streaming analytics insights—from watch time and genre preferences to regional content performance. By analyzing these patterns, content producers can create smarter strategies that resonate with audiences.

With accurate and timely Netflix data analysis, production houses, marketers, and even investors can:

Identify trending genres before they go mainstream

Understand Netflix viewing habits across demographics

Tailor marketing campaigns based on real-time audience interest

Optimize release schedules using predictive analytics in streaming

Why Access to Real-Time Netflix Data Matters

In today’s fast-moving entertainment ecosystem, timing is everything. Having access to real-time Netflix data extraction allows businesses to monitor what's gaining traction right now—not what was popular weeks ago.

Whether it's analyzing top-watched series or tracking seasonal viewing spikes, web scraping for OTT platforms like Netflix empowers you with the data needed to stay ahead.

Transforming Content Strategy with Netflix Data

The future of content creation lies in understanding what works—and why. By tapping into reliable OTT content trends 2025, companies can shift from guessing to knowing. This enables:

Smarter content investment

Improved audience targeting

Enhanced subscriber retention strategies

Customized user experiences across platforms

The Netflix streaming dataset offers rich insights that can redefine how brands approach the entertainment market.

Get Started with Trusted Netflix Data Extraction

At Actowiz Solutions, we specialize in providing clean, structured, and insightful Netflix OTT data that helps our clients make impactful decisions. Our advanced tools ensure accurate, ethical, and scalable Netflix web data extraction for businesses across media, entertainment, and analytics industries.

Final Thoughts

As the OTT industry continues to evolve, one thing is clear—streaming analytics will be at the heart of innovation. By leveraging the power of Netflix data analysis, companies can stay one step ahead and deliver content that truly connects.

Ready to unlock the full potential of Netflix data? 👉 Explore our Netflix Streaming Dataset Solutions

#NetflixStreamingDataset #NetflixDataAnalysis #WebScrapingForOTTPlatforms #NetflixWebDataExtraction

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techexplica · 3 months ago

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Top Reasons to Choose Python for Your Coding Journey

In the ever-evolving world of programming, Python has emerged as one of the most popular and versatile languages. Whether you are a beginner stepping into the coding world or a professional looking to enhance your skills, Python offers a simple yet powerful way to achieve your goals. At Techexplica, the leading Python training institute in Delhi, we believe that learning Python is the best decision you can make for your programming career.

In this blog, we will explore the top reasons why Python is the best choice for your coding journey and how it can benefit you in various domains.

1. Easy to Learn and Use

Python is known for its clean and readable syntax, which makes it an ideal programming language for beginners. Unlike other complex programming languages like Java or C++, Python has a simple syntax that resembles English. This ease of learning allows students and professionals to quickly grasp the fundamentals and start coding efficiently.

At Techexplica, our Python course is designed to ensure that even absolute beginners can learn the language without any difficulty.

2. Highly Versatile and Multi-Purpose

Python is a general-purpose language, meaning it can be used for various applications, including:

Web development

Data science and machine learning

Automation and scripting

Game development

Cybersecurity and ethical hacking

Internet of Things (IoT)

This versatility makes Python a valuable skill, as it opens doors to multiple career opportunities.

3. Wide Community Support

One of Python’s greatest strengths is its vast community of developers and enthusiasts who contribute to its growth. If you ever get stuck while coding, you can easily find solutions through forums like Stack Overflow, GitHub, and Python’s official documentation. With such a strong community, beginners can learn and progress much faster.

At Techexplica, our instructors provide hands-on training and mentorship to ensure our students get the best learning experience.

4. Extensive Libraries and Frameworks

Python offers a vast collection of libraries and frameworks that simplify coding and development. Some of the most commonly used ones include:

NumPy and Pandas – for data analysis

Matplotlib and Seaborn – for data visualization

Scikit-learn and TensorFlow – for machine learning

Flask and Django – for web development

Selenium – for automation and testing

These libraries make Python highly efficient and save developers significant time while working on projects.

5. High Demand in the Job Market

Python developers are in high demand across various industries, including IT, finance, healthcare, and more. Companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Netflix use Python extensively in their tech stacks. Learning Python increases your employability and helps you land lucrative job opportunities.

At Techexplica, we provide industry-relevant training and placement assistance to help students secure jobs in top companies.

6. Perfect for Web Development

Python, with frameworks like Django and Flask, makes web development easier and more efficient. These frameworks provide robust security features and scalability, making Python an excellent choice for developing dynamic websites and applications.

7. Best for Data Science and Machine Learning

Python has become the go-to language for data science and artificial intelligence (AI). It offers powerful tools for data manipulation, statistical analysis, and machine learning, making it the preferred choice for data scientists and AI professionals.

At Techexplica, we offer specialized Python courses focused on data science and AI to help students build expertise in this growing field.

8. Ideal for Automation and Scripting

Python is widely used for automation and scripting tasks, such as:

Web scraping

Automated testing

Task automation (e.g., renaming files, sending emails, etc.)

Network automation

This feature makes Python a valuable skill for IT professionals and system administrators.

9. Strong Community and Corporate Support

Many tech giants, including Google, IBM, and NASA, support Python’s development and use it for critical projects. This corporate backing ensures Python’s continuous growth and evolution, making it a stable and future-proof choice.

10. Excellent for Ethical Hacking and Cybersecurity

Python is widely used in ethical hacking and cybersecurity due to its ability to create powerful tools for penetration testing, network scanning, and malware analysis. Professionals in this field rely on Python to develop and execute security measures effectively.

11. Great for Beginners and Experienced Programmers

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced developer, Python offers something for everyone. Beginners find it easy to start, while advanced programmers can explore its capabilities in AI, data science, and web development.

12. Opens Doors to Freelancing and Entrepreneurship

With Python skills, you can work as a freelancer, develop your own software solutions, or even launch a startup. The demand for Python developers in freelance platforms like Upwork and Fiverr is continuously growing, allowing you to earn a great income while working independently.

Conclusion

Python is the ultimate programming language for anyone looking to start or advance their coding journey. Its simplicity, versatility, strong community support, and high demand in the job market make it a must-learn language.

At Techexplica, we offer the best Python course in Delhi, covering everything from basics to advanced concepts. Our expert trainers, hands-on projects, and placement assistance ensure that our students become proficient Python developers ready to take on real-world challenges.

Enroll today at Techexplica and start your Python journey with the best training in Delhi!

+919871112968

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