#but if they're banned for privacy issues...

[dragongirlbunny]

Notification | It appears the young woman is back again, still complaining about being harassed.

Empathy | (Normal: Failure) She is becoming agitated for some reason, and has said something about your car exploding with hammers.

Logic | (Simple: Failure) Explosions? Hammers? This is a grave threat to your life!

Ban her again!

Logic | Crisis averted, well done.

Website | People seem to be upset about your reaction to the situation. They say you're being transmisogynistic.

>Rhetoric (Medium) : Convince them it was for your own safety.

Conceptualization (Challenging) : Consider your actions

Go back to your vacation (leave).

Rhetoric | (Medium: Failure) You try to explain that your life was in danger, and you had to ban her for threatening you. It doesn't work. People are making jokes about hammers and cars now.

Volition | (Easy: Failure) Ban them too. They're in on the threat. You need to stay safe.

Ban anyone posting about the incident.

Go back to your vacation (leave).

Website | You issue a swift series of bans for the pettiest and slightest reasons you can find.

Perception | (Challenging: Success) Remember the woman from earlier? She's still posting. On a different website.

Authority | (Trivial: Failure) This cannot stand. Show her who's in charge here.

>Interfacing (Medium) : Use her account information to prove you were right.

Volition (Easy) : Remember how we said "If you don't like it, leave"? We already won.

Interfacing | (Medium: Success) You use your access to account data to pull up all of her information and write a lengthy comeback about how she deserved her bans.

Authority | This will settle the matter.

Reaction Speed | (Challenging: Failure) Something is nagging at you. Something about data privacy laws?

Composure | (Trivial: Failure) Quick, delete the post! Maybe nobody saw it.

[gallifreyriver]

Reminder that Zuckerberg actively lobbied with Republican PR firms to make TikTok illegal because he couldn't compete with it.

Reminder that for all its faults TikTok has brought tons of awareness to important issues that barely got any coverage until they blew up on TikTok, and more that still barely got any mainstream coverage even after they did.

Reminder that TikTok has become the largest and easiest place for people to come together and organize, and has 150 million active users in the US.

Reminder that congress, especially conservatives, stand to gain a lot by banning it, because it means less people will hear about all the problematic (fascist) shit they're trying to pass, such as the 300+ anti-trans bills, the bills seeking to make abortion a felony punishable by death, or how they're trying to remove the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). They also get to 'look tough' against China.

Reminder that claims of concerns over data privacy are bullshit, because China could literally just buy our data if they wanted it. Tech companies just like and including Facebook collect and sell our data all the time. China wouldn't need to build an app to get it.

Reminder that banning TikTok sets a precedent that Congress could come for literally any other social media they deem 'a threat' and ban that too. Yes, even your personal favorite one.

Reminder that we should care about this and instead of saying "Good Riddance TikTok!" we should be actively trying to stop this violation of free speech and stop handing more power to fascists just because we personally don't like a thing or think it's cringe. This is bigger than your personal tastes.

Please sign this letter from the ACLU to your members of Congress and urge them to listen. There's also a hearing this Thursday on March 23rd at 10am EST in DC where the TikTok CEO will be testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The hearing will be open to the public and will also be live streamed online.

I don't care if you hate TikTok or think it's "cringe." If you all actually hate Facebook and fascists as much as you say you do, then you won't stand for letting them win this fight to ban it.

[blamemma]

miss blamemma, please could you detail what you think happened between michael and daniel for the rest of us that are obsessed with the drama?!

i truly wish i could just upload the voicenotes i've sent to the besties today about this because that would be SO much easier but ok here we go....

i don't think there is one cataclysmic event that led them to fall out, i think it's an amalgamation of a couple of things.

privacy and money; michael loves popularity, loves money, loves business, loves social media, montesises his drivers (he's doing that now with his reels of yuki as well). there has to come a point, for me, where that crosses the boundaries of your role as a trainer. as a trainer, you have to be there for your driver, your driver is your number one priority. if that driver no longer feels they can trust you, then you are not doing your job. michael going on multiple podcasts and dropping tidbits about daniel's life and training and difficulties here and there is not a good look, and i think of the most telling is that testosterone article. michael worked with daniel for the last 5 years so people are going to presume that it is about daniel and on the back of that i saw multiple articles that were headlined something along the fucked up lines of "daniel ricciardo's trainer reveals he broke sex ban with hot young girlfriend heidi berger" (here & here and there are definitely more examples!) and daniel is a relatively private guy about his relationship so having that blasted everywhere cause ur ex-trainer talked about male hormones?? and then yeah u have that podcast thing today....

i have no proof, but i truly believe that michael wanted daniel to take the haas or williams seat so that he (michael) could stay in f1 because again, being in this prestigious sports gets him followers and engagement = money. therefore, when daniel went to him for advice michael may not have been open and willing to daniel's idea of a sabbatical, because it didn't really mean employment for michael (to caveat here, not having job security is a very daunting thing, and i am not saying michael is wrong for worrying about this, however, michael is paid and contracted by daniel and i dont think daniel would have been paying him a cheap wage these past 5 years)

i think daniel has had the time to step away from mclaren, process what happened there, enter red bull again and see how they manage their drivers, move to alpha tauri and see how they manage and speak about their drivers and then truly assess and process the year that last year was. whether you believe michael was foundational in daniel's issues last year or not, he was in control of his diet and exercise regime and his general health and we can all clearly see that deteriorated over the mclaren period and it may be daniel has now stepped away, assessed, talked to some fellow drivers like max (who then stuck up for him in that press conference when michael was brought up, hence why i think he spoke to max about) and how they get on with their trainers and thought hmmmm michael wasn't like that

other factors include michael being very close and friendly with mclaren engineers and social media people (again, valid, you want to get on with the people you work with, but again, your priority should be daniel especially in a tumultuous team like that!) & michael constantly saying he wanted to bigger than daniel, even to the point he started training his neck so that he could say he had a bigger neck than daniel....weird behaviour when you're meant to be motivating ur driver, not ultimately trying to beat them when they're already down in the dumps???

this is genuinely all conjecture and theories and i have no evidence for any of the shit i am spouting here but i am just going on the info we have and the things we have seen and trying to connect dots....

[nekrotiize]

Tumblr has begun selling User Data to Midjourney.

I've seen a lot of outrage on this already - understandable, a key part of Tumblr's remaining appeal so far has been the fact that user data is private, and not sold to any third party companies. There's a major Anti-AI and Data Privacy movement going on there, and while the Anti-AI crowd can veer a bit reactionary, the fact that this move is being made at all is a massive breach of user trust.

I suppose my stance on one side of this is nuanced - many are furious at Staff, though Staff is not necessarily at fault for this. Staff, at the very least, seems to have fought like hell for an option to Opt Out of this... Though many take issue with it being Opt Out rather than Opt In. The person who has shown the most Uncharacteristic-Of-Tumblr enthusiasm towards this Midjourney deal is - who would have guessed! - the CEO of the company, who is already in some serious hot water for his handling of a situation regarding a Transfeminine user by the name of Predstrogen getting banned unjustly several times, and then proceeding to personally harass her off-site.

Staff seems to be in some genuine distress. I am not necessarily mad at them for this - word on the street says this just wasn't their decision. They're at the mercy of a CEO who is clearly having some kind of mental break and doesn't for a second understand the values of the userbase of the site he's bought. Tragic situation.

All that is to say, we are most likely going to experience a new influx of users on Cohost. There was already a wave when the Predstrogen situation happened - with myself being a part of that - but this may be a final straw for many. Tumblr seems to be bleeding loyalty in numbers I've never quite seen before. I hope the CEO recognizes this. He could have been making Tumblr better for everyone, but all that seems to have happened since he got control of the site is more and more divisive decisions... From changing the UI to match Twitter more, to this nonsense.

It's difficult to imagine being this out of touch with something you're supposed to have your finger on the pulse of. I suppose that's just what happens when you get your hands on lots of money.

I know no one wants to hear it, but it may be a good time to make a Cohost account. The bad decisions... Keep compounding.

[bonefall]

Hopping off the gathering ask, are cross-clan relationships themselves not forbidden, if a second 'illegal' gathering is able to take place? How does honor-siring work if the father isn't of the same clan? Have there ever been incidents where a particularly law-loving leader turned around and started condemning everyone in gathering 2: electric boogaloo? Is this a "I saw X at the second gathering with Y!" "So what were YOU doing at the second gathering bestie???" situation, where majority of lawbreakers know who else is in kahoots but just constantly keep their mouth shut? Did Mapleshade stay at these gatherings and thats how she got caught? SORRY FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS IM VERY CURIOUS

The answer is; the Aftergathering wasn't so bold back at the Forest territories!

In fact that's why I specified that the one Shellfur went to was an average Lake gathering!

It has always been your right to wander and have friends in other Clans. Unlike canon where a warrior's life is strictly controlled, cats are rarely questioned for hanging out in places they're allowed to be. So long as you do your responsibilities, you're a CLAN cat. Not a kittypet with a twoleg.

But being caught so brazenly meeting with a mate in another Clan, that would be a huge problem. So the Aftergathering existed, but quietly. The cats gave each other privacy.

No one would EVER ask why you were staying. A lot of coded language. If you got cuddly in public, someone would gently tell you to be more discreet.

And of course there was no soup.

The Aftergathering is also not that old! It started forming about a generation after Darkstar's Commandment, when kit-stealing was banned, during the mid-Crusade Era.

It was a genetic necessity, and Clan animosity had a different flavor when Chelford raids were the Clan's main targets. Pinestar was born before there was an Aftergathering.

The Campaign Era wittled the Aftergathering significantly. If the cats hadn't responded by becoming much less conspicuous, there very much could have been a Salem-esque "what were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament" movement. In fact, if Fire Alone didn't happen when it did, it could have been something that a leader with the newly-minted Thistle Law would have done.

It only didn't because it didn't. The soil was ripe for it. History is full of near-misses.

After the TNP journey, cats have become careless about the Aftergathering. The destruction of the forest changed something about them, the divisions were never quite the same again. Paw Soup itself was a cuisine MADE by apprentices who worked together.

As long as you are loyal and fiery for the rest of the month, defending your Clan with your life, the Aftergathering is not made into an issue...

Well, besides during TBC, when the Impostor ruled the lake.

[stormblessed95]

Of the many things that bother me about fansites, the main one is probably that the boys don't get to approve which photos of them are published or used for merchandise when it's not official content. The second thing is that we see how they get mobbed at airports and how much pressure they're under to act friendly and smile for photos no matter how they feel. Especially since big hit has asked fans not to show up at airports and the only reason we know when they're traveling is because the information gets leaked without their consent.

When I saw people supporting black n white I assumed that she at least followed the rules about not going to the airport and not sneaking cameras into concerts, but I've seen both types of photos from her. So I was wondering if you could explain why jikookers seem so okay with her and not other fansites?

So I'll post this ask, with the very clear statement at the beginning that I'm not opening this up for debate. Because this is one of those topics of debate that continuously circle around constantly and it's exhausting and repeating myself is something im trying to do less over here this year. My essay of an answer starts here...

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that this came from you seeing this reblog post below. But I'm curious if you actually read it. Because I'm pretty sure it answers your question. Along with the post I LINKED in my reblog because that goes into the culture of fansites in kpop even more.

But then if we want to talk about it more... we can I guess. Since you asked nicely. Fansites in kpop can kind of be linked to the equivalent of concert photographers in the US. If you know what those are/are more familiar with the concert scene in the US. Idk where you are from though. Concert photographers are in general pretty respected and hyped up in the US, even at times have their photos from the concert purchased by the artists themselves. They aren't employed by the stadium, by the artist or the artists companies though usually. They aren't shunned by fans or banned from the concerts. And they share the photos they take online and even sell them, no issues. It's basically the same thing.

Fansites are, for the most part, a very normal, expected and intricate part of kpop culture. Most of the boys often recongize, smile, wave and bow at their fansites (and no, not just at places where they are forced to act like they are okay with it when they aren't, like airports, but at concerts and award shows or going back further in time, fansigns and ISAC events). Or they will move to let the fansite get the best shot of the members they are a fansite for. Compared to when it's a known problematic fansite who are more stalker then fansite, they don't do that and there are even videos/photos of them looking uncomfortable when recognizing that fansite, rather than smiling for them. Like Headliner, for example, A JK "fansite" where we have examples of him looking displeased in her direction and an example of Jimin standing in front of JK in her line of sight, "ruining" the shot and looking right at her, hands on hips.

And because I mentioned above airports, like you did. Let's talk about that too. Because I DO have a post up here reeming people out for showing up to and crowding the boys at airports. It's horribly disrespectful and not okay. Fansites (like BnW and other respectful ones) aren't generally the people you see shoving their phones in the guys faces, they tend to hang back with the media mostly and not get so far up their asses, invading personal space. And media is tipped off when the guys are traveling so they can go and report on it. Its FANS who invade privacy to show up that's a problem, not necessarily the media or fansites, which is expected as an idol. Do I LIKE they are expected to be photographed to hell and back when leaving and entering Korea? Not really, but it's also not the same thing as invading their privacy either. Following them into the airport and onto the plane or to their destination to take photos of them on the plane, at the waiting areas or getting off the plane? Yeah, that's an invasion of privacy and then upgrades you (general you) to stalker. And here is my post about how you shouldn't go to the airport when BTS is traveling. Again, please actually read my posts I link to you.

As for the consent about the boys aproving photos/videos argument, I then have to ask are you against everyone who livestreams the concert on their phones for ARMYs who aren't there to tune in? Or all the people who put the photos up they take at concerts or other events up onto the timeline? Or because it's not a fansite photo, just a watermarked photo from some random fan account, that's then okay? I don't know you, so idk how you personally interact with everything like above, but it's food for thought. It's also something to consider to make sure if you ARE so against fansites, that you aren't liking, retreating, saving, etc photos of any of the members that come from fansites. (The jikook photo above comes from a Jimin fansite btw) Because I'm pretty sure Almost every ARMY has, intentionally or otherwise. Because MOST concert/event photos end up coming from fansigns. And the boys KNOW that and are okay with it. And the company isn't struggling anymore. If they didn't want people "filling in the gaps" of available photos, they could hire more themselves and release more too.

To address your comments about them selling or distributing merch with their photos of the boys that the boys didn't get to pre-approve. That's fair. And it's also your choice to support that or not. Personally, I probably won't buy fansite photobooks, I'd rather spend my money on what I know will go towards the boys pocket directly, or at least towards them. Such as their official photobooks, albums, DVD packages, etc. But all the photos the fansites sell, they also normally just release for free too online. At least that I've seen. And then all those photos they have, they will sometimes hold events for people to buy them as merch. But that's a customer choice for sure. And it's 100% valid to not like that and not spend your money there. BlacknWhite for example, held her own little merch photo exhibition thing last year. Idk what to call it, but I posted here so it did happen for sure. Bighit hosts these same similar types of exhibitions at the end of various eras/concerts you can also purchase from more officially too.

But also again, all idols know about fansites and often start recognizing the ones that are there for them and don't mind them (as long as they aren't crossing privacy boundaries, which I will touch on later here too). For some examples, here you've got Jimin being playful and silly with his fansite here when he saw them...

Changing to make sure the fansites could get better photos during the fansign....

Using/wearing and loving gifts given to them and sent by their fansigns

He still has these focal speakers in his studio. Which was a gift from a fansite way back when

Jikook engaging with BlacknWhite when she is there taking their photos.... AND you'll see in my reblog (first linked post) the post I shared in there, Jimin seeing, acknowledging and moving out of the way for a Hobi fansite so they can get a better shot of him too

Tae had a photo from his fansite blown up and hung on his dorm wall.

Hobi shared a photo taken by his fansite on his Instagram too

Plus, Jimins family (idk about the others, Jimins is just more in the public eye because of his dad's Cafe) had fansite photos of Jimin and BTS hanging on their cafe walls. Jimins dad recently gave a fansite photo to a visiting dignitary that he got framed.

JK blushing over seeing his first ever fansite back during their debut.

The reason Fansites will sometimes get kicked out of concerts is because they are blacklisted (which most are not) for various reasons but mostly due to proven stalking or for misconduct during a concert (which again. Doesn't happen as often as stan twt will lead you to believe.) Bighit baned all photography, so it's not even necessarily about fansites, it's about Hybe wanting to bottle and sell the air the guys breathe because they know ARMY would buy it. Lol they are a corporate company and are focused on the bottom line more than alot of fans like to think at times I believe. A lot of the hate towards fansites comes from people who don't really understand idol culture at times and almost always exlculsively from I- armys. I don't see K army fans complaining about fansites. I see BTS members complaining about media, fans and fansites following them to places like, the mall, or on the private schedules, and overcrowding them. But never about fansites being in events, concerts, or airports from afar. In fact, from the ones who aren't problems, I see the opposite from the members. Jikookers like BnW because she is a jikook fansite and focuses on getting photos of them together and seperate, so it's like a one stop party. Lol other JK and JM fansites will share photos of jikook together when they are glued at the hip (which is often) along with when they with other members too, which is also nice and you'll see plently of people sharing those with no problems either. Again, as long as they aren't problematic accounts.

Fansites who take photos of the guys on private schedules? No. Who get on planes the boys are on? No. Who shit talk the boys and use them only for the cash flow their photos bring them? No. Who stalk them and show up places they shouldn't be and turn into sasaengs and doing anything for a quick buck? No. Fansites who crowd into the boys personal space for the perfect photo or are rude to them/others? No. Fansites who don't take no for an answer? No. But that's a small portion of fansites. Not all of them. Not even close to all of them. And alot of this hate towards fansites comes off more performative for most armys then anything else. Plus saying all fansites are bad is kinda like saying all ARMYs are 15 year old girls who bully people online because a small faction are and that's what people latch onto in an effort to continue to perpetuate hate towards the fandom and BTS themselves through their fans. Not the same exactly, but similar enough I'll make the comparison.

Your opinions are your own and are very valid. I'm not trying to change your mind about liking fansites. I don't love them necessarily either because I would HATE the constant flashing lights everywhere I went ever if I was them. But I also understand the nuance here and the difference between the hysteria stan spaces have made the fansite issues sound and what they actually are and how long they've been around for. Again, your choice over how you engage with them and how you feel about them. And all choices around that are valid. In my opinion. As long as you aren't supporting antis disguised as fansites, I don't see a problem with them in general. For me personally.

Hope that helped answer your question anon. Thank you for asking it respectfully.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Same anon that's something the supreme Court question. Why do you say it like they are defending it when I have seen multiple people say they don't care about the Constitution either? Like aren't they the ones that overturning roe v wade and there's a possibility they will make same-sex marriages illegal again with all this project 2025 stuff that's going up?

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals? And please make this very clear with facts. This may require you to write up a longer post about this but I think I really want to understand if that is a fear monitoring thing or if this is another "Dems are bad, gop good" shit

First of all, Roe v Wade was always bad law. The idea that the right to privacy means a right to legal abortions never made sense, morally or constitutionally, and it never should have been in place at all, let alone for as long as it was. The Supreme Court overturning unconstitutional laws and reversing unconstitutional decisions is literally why it exists. The Constitution empowers the court for that very reason. If you want other examples of the court protecting the constitution, just look at the Heller decision, or any of the other decisions rolling back unconstitutional gun laws in the past few years. Look also at Matal v Tam, in which the court unanimously ruled that the government can't ban speech just because it's offensive. Which means that there can be no laws against so-called hate speech in the US, and the Orwellian tyranny you see all over Europe under the guise of combating "hate speech" can never legally happen here. Which is a massive win for free speech and the entire reason the 1st Amendment was written.

As for gay marriage getting overturned, it's incredibly unlikely, since there are zero court cases about gay marriage going on right now and the Supreme Court can't just make rulings out of nothing (much to the frustration of more than a few people, I'm sure) it's basically a non-issue. If you're referring to what Clarence Thomas said about gay marriage in his majority opinion overturning Roe, he specifically said that this ruling shouldn't be used as justification to overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges decision on its own, though he did say that those decisions deserve another look. And he's right. Obergefell is another case of an activist court inventing rights out of thin air. There is no such thing as the right to marriage, for gay or straight people. It should be overturned, and the issue of defining legal marriage should be left up to individual states, as the Constitution intended (see the 10th Amendment).

I've been asked about Project 2025 before, and I'll tell you what I told the last anon, as far as I can tell, it's a pile of nothing. It's a group of policy proposals made by a bunch of conservative political commenters I've never heard of, who, as far as I know, have no connection to any Republican political campaign or the RNC. No one on the right is talking about the project. No politicians have come out in support of it. No campaigns have said they're going to implement those policies. Project 2025 is a left-wing boogeyman, and not even one that's getting a lot of traction in left wing circles since the only time I've ever seen anyone talking about it has been in my ask box and a few fringe far left conspiracy sites that came up when I originally tried to figure out what it was. It's the left attempt to have their own Agenda 2030 to be scared and angry about, except there aren't any international organizations trying to get the governments of the world to adopt their policies.

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals?

So, I really don't know what you mean by this. What goals?

[wcamino-confessions]

Alright so there was a post about someone having a carbon copy of my character that was requested to be removed so I am remaking that post as some new stuff happened and I don't believe this person deserves any sympathy as they are trying to pull the victim card. I tried my best to work things out and they lied about what happened, went straight to LT and got me muted/a strike. However, Larkin, this is outside of Amino now. LT won't help you here, I was respectful until you did that shit. Just like how LT didn't help me with your theiving ass even after being told from the designer that the character was indeed copied, you still wanted to use the character. === Okay so back in 2019, my friend group and I opened a public warrior cats roleplay on Discord. Thats when a problemtic user joins, we decided to let him join until some supervision from our staff team. The punishments within our server were pretty leanate but for this one member, any rule broken would have been an instant ban. He created some drama outside of our server for coping designs and passing them off as freebies in our roleplay so we had him removed. When he was removed, he stole a lot of characters including mine and procecced to sell, trade, and scam many people with our characters. This happened four years ago and I still am dealing with everything. While doing a Toyhouse purge, Larkin commented on my post offering a trade for a character and went I was looking through their characters, I ran into a character that looked like my character so I asked the person about it. I believe I was being quite nice about the entire situation despite all the stress and frustration I felt having to deal with this all over again.

After this interaction, I went to the designer who made the character. I already knew the character was redesigned/inspired by my own but just to get proof to get this person to understand that these two characters are not similar, they're a redesign. I did blur out the person's name who got the character redesign as I did speak to them prior to making this and just as I thought, they got the character in a trade a year ago and never ended up using them. I figure this would be the case so their privacy in the screenshot below is blurred.

After telling Larkin the information I found out, I informed Larkin and asked for the character to be sent to me so I could delete them to prevent anyone else from being scammed. I was trying to come to an agreement with Larkin and offered to sell them the copyright usage, which they showed interest in but I was still unsure at this point because they have been stolen and sold so many times in the past. They claimed they were interested in buying the character if I decided to sell them, this is what they lied about. They went to LT claiming I was forcing them to buy or delete the character which wasn't the case. When I was done with that, they asked if they could redesign the character that was based off of my character which I told them no.

With that being said, Larkin just wanted the redesign but I wasn't gonna let that happen as I wasn't okay with the redesign in the first place. They only wanted the redesign of my character and in order to get the redesign, I would have to sell the entire character as their version of mine was stolen. Shortly after this conversation, I did send another message just asking if the character was deleted and everything. They asked if the issue was solved, and I don't remember what I said. LT deleted these last couple messages that were exchanged. I did not delete anything from our chats as I typically keep evidence in case of things like this. This is what LT muted me for, I was supposably forcing this person to buy the rights or delete the character but as these screenshots prove, they wanted to buy the character after I mentioned a way to solve the dispute. You are a fucking liar Larkin. I wanted to help you and fix this without getting the LT involved, but clearly we couldn't come to an agreement because you were being stubborn after finding out the character was indeed stolen. and yes, I did report you to Toyhouse about everything. I would have liked to solve things peacefully since I have gotten my Toyhouse reported, frozen and banned for something very similar to this situation where I bought a stolen character but the other person wasn't so nice. They didn't mesage me asking where I got the character from, they straight reported me for theft. I got all my characters frozen (meaning you cant transfer, do anything with them) and banned shortly after. I was also accused of making fake screenshots/proof because the person I bought the character from made fake evidence which in return backfired on me. I don't want to get anyone banned because I lost all of my characters and their images, I had to dig through thousands of dms to find everything. It was absolute hell and a huge time cosumer. I don't wish that upon anyone but since the stolen character is still on your profile, I had no choice.

.

[luxlightly]

Putting any personal feelings on TikTok and its content aside for a moment, people should be concerned about the trials going on right now to ban the app. Because the basic argument is "you are selling data" to which TikTok has more or less replied "Yes, we are. The same amount that almost every single American tech company sells and to the same people. The only difference is that we're a Chinese app and they're American."

And, as per usual, the congressmen arguing to ban it have no idea what any of what's being said means and just heard the word "Chinese".

To be clear, this is not a trial about data selling laws. This isn't about the ethics of selling data or in any way restricting companies like Meta from selling the same stuff to the same people. In fact, one of the things they're trying to do is force TikTok to sell the platform to an American company, who would then not be forced to change anything about the way they collect and sell data.

The issue of data selling by apps like Facebook and TikTok is a serious issue that needs to be addressed and rectified, but this trial isn't really about TikTok itself. This isn't about data or privacy. This is about congress trying to restrict American consumption of any non-American goods or services along with blatant anti-Chinese racism. Both of which have a long standing and deeply dangerous precedent in this country. Regardless of whether or not you feel the specific app deserves to exists given its content and moderation, this is an issue you shouldn't laugh off because "lol tiktok dances stupid".

[ilthit]

We're currently in the middle of an unprecedented wave of governmental attempts worldwide to control social media through the legislative and regulatory process, often in the interests of protecting children. Unfortunately, the methods being proposed as a solution are dangerous and damaging to everyone. If you live in the US or UK and have a few minutes today, we at Dreamwidth would like to ask you to contact your elected officials and ask them to oppose several of the worst of the pending bills. If you live in the US: KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, claims to be a bill that will protect children's privacy and restrict them from viewing harmful material. If you've followed our efforts to help overturn California's AB 2273, you likely already know the problems with KOSA, because they're the same problems: requiring websites to age-gate the internet will require every website to identify, deanonymize, and store information about every single one of their users, not just people under 18, to determine who shouldn't see content deemed "harmful to children". It also politicizes the question of what's "harmful to children" in ways that will disproportionally affect the marginalized. If you don't want to be forced to upload your government issued ID or subject yourself to unscientific, unvalidated, black-box biometric 'verification' every time you visit a website, learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your elected officials to tell them you oppose its passage. If you live in the UK: The Online Safety Bill will criminalize a large amount of lawful speech, ban strong encryption, and empower Ofcom to block access to websites with no accountability and no recourse. Multiple providers and services have already said they'll stop offering services to UK residents if it passes, including Wikipedia and WhatsApp. Please take a moment to learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your MP to tell them you oppose its passage. There are dozens of other terrible bills in various stages of the legislative process worldwide that will threaten your right to express yourself and hand the government the power to censor and deanonymize you online: those are only the two biggest threats right now. We will continue to do everything we can to contribute to the legal fights being fought by various organizations that are working to protect your right to be anonymous and speak freely on Dreamwidth and elsewhere online, but the best way to do that is to not have to have the legal fight in the first place. Please let your elected representatives know that you oppose efforts to require age verification to access content online and to force websites to engage in government-mandated censorship.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Forgive me for posting again about a character whom nobody knows, but I'm going through Grant's appearances with the JSA and I just have a Lot of Feelings.

Grant personally can't catch a break, but he does have the advantage of repeatedly having teammates who try to look out for him. This time, on the JSA, it's his former Titans teammate Jesse Chambers (formerly Jesse Quick, now going by her mother's old codename Liberty Belle) and to a lesser extent Jesse's husband Rick Tyler (Hourman). They recruit him onto the team (...much to his reluctance) and take him under their wing. They're the ones who find out why he wears the full-face mask now and have seen his severely scarred face.

And the narrative never brings this up, but they have a sort of familial connection to Grant too. As a result of the experimentation done on him, Grant has DNA from quite a few members of the JLA and JSA, including both of Jesse's parents and Rick's father. So Jesse and Rick are probably the closest to biological siblings that the orphaned Grant's likely to get. Sort of.

Anyway, there's one particular scene I'd like to talk about, from Justice Society of America 2007 #8.

When Grant was sixteen and had just developed his powers (a few years prior to this story?), he got banned from the state of Georgia after he accidentally blew up downtown Atlanta. The JSA are going to Georgia on a mission and make it clear at the state line that he can't legally join them, but he follows them anyway because Zoom, the speedster supervillain who is responsible for his disfiguring scars, has been sighted there. He wants revenge. He tracks Zoom down and is trying to kill him when Jesse comes to talk to him.

We never get to see Grant's entire scarred face, as if out of respect for his privacy, but there are glimpses of parts of it, such as here, that get the idea across. I suspect the scars might have been less of an issue for him if he didn't already have deep-seated problems with self-loathing and feeling unlovable. Someone with more inner resources might have been able to approach this differently, but for someone like Grant the scarring is just a tangible sign of what he's already struggling with, and his response is accordingly intense. He has gone from a generally agreeable boy with some anger issues to a young man who is angry almost constantly.

Jesse tries to talk him down, but he's pretty worked up. "Your face isn't who you are," she tells him. This is reminiscent of Grant's words when he chose to call himself Damage because "What I do is who I am." And now he not only causes damage but feels that being damaged is all he's reduced to.

His comment about not being able to be with a girl again seems kind of out of place for his motives? He hasn't dated anyone since his first love interest got fridged. But maybe he had finally gotten to a place where he was ready to open himself up to that again...and then all this happened.

Jesse reminds him that she has seen his face and hasn't rejected him (back in #4). Unlike her husband, who responded to the sight of the scars with shocked concern, she made a point of not staring or commenting, handed Grant his mask, and told him to get back into the fight. But his core belief that others will reject him is so strong that the only way he can justify Jesse's supportive behavior to himself is to insist that she's an anomaly. He changes the subject to his resentment of Jesse's being "perfect."

This is a sore subject for Jesse. She was pressured since childhood to carry on her father's legacy, with insinuations being made that she wouldn't be "special" if she didn't. The mantle of the Flash was once promised to her and then turned out to be a ruse to try to motivate the actually intended successor--and she was quite hurt by that. She has juggled running a large company after her father's death, attending grad school, and being a superhero (all while being constantly overshadowed by other speedsters). And then she gave up her speed to help Wally and had to start over with a new heroic identity.

Zoom takes the opportunity to taunt her about losing her speed, but she ignores him and opens up to Grant about her struggles with perfectionism and how her husband's support helped her see herself and her capabilities differently.

"Just because something has a crack in it doesn't mean you throw it away."

Her new codename, Liberty Belle, isn't just her mother's mantle. It's a reminder that there's still value in things that are cracked. Broken. Damaged. And for someone who's been so pressured to be perfect, that's a liberating mindset.

But to Grant, this approach still seems too easy. As far as he's concerned, he's not merely cracked but beyond repair. The doctors tried and failed to reconstruct his face. His attempts to heal after addressing his past of abuse while on the Titans apparently weren't successful. The state he used to live in ("hometown" is incorrect...he had just recently moved there before the explosion and has moved too often to definitively call anywhere a hometown) has utterly rejected him and won't revoke the ruling.

Jesse isn't so convinced though. She's not going to give up on him. And Grant stands down.

And that's when Zoom attacks, both physically and verbally. He mocks Jesse for attempting to be "a big sister" and proceeds with his intention to kill Grant.

Grant has some degree of superspeed but not enough to keep up with a speedster on this level. He freezes, almost as if resigned to his own death. Almost, but not quite. He's in tears...maybe for the first time since his difficult conversation with Roy.

Jesse goes even more into big sister mode. It's enough for her to suddenly be able to reaccess her speed, stop the debris from hitting Grant, and throw it back at Zoom, incapacitating him.

Grant is impressed and grateful, and Jesse has finally worked through her mental block. Helping him has helped her too. She and the rest of the JSA manage to prevent him from getting arrested for setting foot in Georgia, and things move on.

But this conversation proves to have an impact. In #11, Grant comes to the defense of a new superhero, Judomaster (Sonia Sato), who has taken up a legacy mantle to avenge her father's murder and is about to get arrested after a destructive public fight.

As he tries to explain why he's interfering on her behalf, he repeats Jesse's words.

He has spent his entire time with the JSA so far wallowing in his own misery, but now he's using that sense of hurt to advocate for someone else in a similar position to prevent her from having to suffer what he has. He was alone and unsupported during the Atlanta incident, and he doesn't want that for Sonia. Jesse passed on something that helped her; now Grant is doing the same for someone else.

This growth is not lost on Jesse and Rick!

And of course nothing is magically solved, and Grant continues to struggle a lot and more terrible things happen, but this moment is a much-needed respite from the mental mire he's been trapped in for so long, and I wish this arc had been allowed to fully continue.

[claraameliapond]

Yeah. I'm done.

It's disappointing and a shame because I like her music, but more and more she just shows herself to be so morally repugnant

And I am calling it out because young girls need none of this bullshit shoved in their faces.

She has no integrity.

She is not educated

But she's also not intelligent.

Barely a high school diploma, and then straight into thr public eye in the music industry.

I pity children who are homeschooled, because it's usually by uneducated and undereducated parents.

She was so excited to take a picture with Taylor Swift at Jimmy Fallon late night and then a month or so later aligns herself with *that* family, making a video with that toxic kardashian woman -

Let's be clear , that whole family make money out of making people and young girls feel bad about themselves.

Toxic.

Horrific

Let's not amplify that platform

Nope. No thank you. Gross

We need to protect all our little sisters.

And its disappointing to me that that moment was using Taylor for her genuine hard earned global success and "fame". ( I know this would happen a lot but it's just disappointing when you're thinking someone couldn't go that far. I know Taylor has been targeted by some incredibly aggressive people for just being successful and someone that targeted her when she was 19 receiving an award to try and get fame for himself - that was so disgusting and incredibly horrific. Seriously, noone had heard of that idiot before that moment. It's so pathetic. And really morally repugnant and aggressive and horrifying and terrifying etc. Men who literally can't handle the fact that a young girl could be successful, whose image was very pg , and more successful than them .

If you think that misogyny doesn't exist think again, if someone can be that aggressive and destructive toward a 19 year old girl, who was already more famous than the interrupter , and I don't even think they banned him from the awards as punishment. And let me tell you, males resentful of a girl's, female's or woman at any age - 's success Are horrific, violent, aggressive - and everywhere. All a female or girl needs to do is to exist calmly near them, not even aware of them, and they want to about murder her for proving their egos wrong. Men, you need to work on your gender as a whole. It's horrific. And disgusting.

I digress only to make the point that any other female human being should just respect Taylor, for example, for having to go through all of that and be treated so badly, with no respect etc

Let alone another female in the industry.

But no. This one used her too.

Sigh.

I was already turning away extremely repulsed by the compleyely unethical, no brain idiocy of the way Meghan Trainor overexposes her child - and uses that as her brand- and then there was that - inside the womb photo- recently that noone asked for. Gross. I don't want to see that. Yuck. No.

Overexposure and overexploitation of her own children. What. No. Sharenting has gone too far. And with too public an audience.

That's their digital footprint. No nononononono.

She's a parent. And she's doing this to her own kids.

Gone are the days when nonone was really aware of the dangers of social media and sharing children's photos online. Or that conscious of it. Let alone on such an open, global scale.

We know now. We're well aware as a society.

I don't want to know what her child looks like.

I don't care what any celebrity's children look like, who they are etc. Their privacy needs to be respected, especially by their own parents.

They are real human beings. They're not toys.

She's not intelligent.

But she's also not kind.

She's selfish and using people- including her own child- for one of the worst attention seeking behaviour issues I've ever seen.

This 'girls got moxie' person whose video it is, in the video is lovely, and right.

Teaching is the worst job with the worst pay everywhere.

The psychological trauma alone.

Let alone the hours.

People don't get it because they don't see it. But they sure create it.

Respect your teachers.

And turn away from 'figures' in the current cultural zeitgeist who are so immoral and repugnant they will actively put a whole profession en masse in even more danger than they already are.

No. More.

Disappointing but true.

#People editing themselves out.

Protect your children ,and children you know, from people like this.

[sweagen]

US, UK: Please take a moment to contact your elected officials!

Aug. 30th, 2023 11:41 pm

denise posting in dw_news

We're currently in the middle of an unprecedented wave of governmental attempts worldwide to control social media through the legislative and regulatory process, often in the interests of protecting children. Unfortunately, the methods being proposed as a solution are dangerous and damaging to everyone. If you live in the US or UK and have a few minutes today, we at Dreamwidth would like to ask you to contact your elected officials and ask them to oppose several of the worst of the pending bills.

If you live in the US: KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, claims to be a bill that will protect children's privacy and restrict them from viewing harmful material. If you've followed our efforts to help overturn California's AB 2273, you likely already know the problems with KOSA, because they're the same problems: requiring websites to age-gate the internet will require every website to identify, deanonymize, and store information about every single one of their users, not just people under 18, to determine who shouldn't see content deemed "harmful to children". It also politicizes the question of what's "harmful to children" in ways that will disproportionally affect the marginalized. If you don't want to be forced to upload your government issued ID or subject yourself to unscientific, unvalidated, black-box biometric 'verification' every time you visit a website, learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your elected officials to tell them you oppose its passage.

If you live in the UK: The Online Safety Bill will criminalize a large amount of lawful speech, ban strong encryption, and empower Ofcom to block access to websites with no accountability and no recourse. Multiple providers and services have already said they'll stop offering services to UK residents if it passes, including Wikipedia and WhatsApp. Please take a moment to learn more about the issues with the bill and then contact your MP to tell them you oppose its passage.

There are dozens of other terrible bills in various stages of the legislative process worldwide that will threaten your right to express yourself and hand the government the power to censor and deanonymize you online: those are only the two biggest threats right now. We will continue to do everything we can to contribute to the legal fights being fought by various organizations that are working to protect your right to be anonymous and speak freely on Dreamwidth and elsewhere online, but the best way to do that is to not have to have the legal fight in the first place. Please let your elected representatives know that you oppose efforts to require age verification to access content online and to force websites to engage in government-mandated censorship.

[connordhm]

On September 27th, 2023, Meta and Ray-Bans released the second generation of their smart glasses to the public. Initially called Ray Ban Stories, the first generation of product was released in 2021 but with poor reception. Now, Meta is hoping to increase traction and make this a more mainstream product.

However, many of the concerns that we learnt about with Google Glasses still hold true with Meta's product, namely that of privacy. They flash a small light when the glasses are recording, but this is still highly contentious. There are also concerns with database storage of data from recording and photos taken by users. Meta has claimed that privacy is of their upmost concern, but I still believe the conclusions made by Hurst in our readings were very apt to this situation.

One of the main differences with this product and the aforementioned Google Glasses is the price point, the latter was priced at $1,500 in 2013, but these are priced at only $329 when released in September of last year, so the accessibility of price is also dramatically increased.

One of the main issues I see with this product relates a lot to McNeil's writings, which touched on the idea of consensual recording and the fact that in today's modern age, consensual recording is becoming a thing of the past. If smart glasses were to ever become orthodox, the amount of people being non-consensually recorded or photographed would skyrocket. The inconspicuous nature of a camera inside of glasses is also directly related to this issue, if people can't even be aware of the fact that they're being recorded by an individual, your sense of privacy is almost completely eroded. I would say this is also how this product differs from the Aria Headset, which is much more akin to a VR headset and therefore very conspicuous.

Overall, this new product has as lot of glaring issues, and even though the chances of this project becoming mainstream are slim, it showcases a bleak future for our privacy and the lack thereof.

[myrddin-wylt]

i’m genuinely curious over what nationverse public figures au would react to ships like fruk or amechu. like how is the general population or government reaction? do they try to stop it? ban it? what would it be?

fruk i think would be fine, sure they would have some issues but nothing major. but man is amechu going to have hard time here.

I've posted on this topic before on this blog, but it's always good worldbuilding to build on.

it really does mostly depend on the rules of the specific AU. is this a world where nations were only recently revealed? or is this an Earth where people have known about their existence since Antiquity? or have people known about them since [insert era here, eg French Revolution]? if nations weren't revealed recently, how does society view them? are they exempt from most rules and expectations of society because, well, they're immortal, or are they expected to all be the perfect citizen of their culture? or is it a little bit of both? eg same-sex relationships are 'permissible' for nations throughout history even in eras/places where it would otherwise be punishable by law, but people still turn their noses up at the nations for doing it. or do people genuinely expect nations to play by different rules, especially since they don't reproduce? like historically, the general purpose of marriage in most societies is to legislate inheritance and who counts as an heir and who doesn't, and/or form alliances etc etc. but the nations aren't going to have these problems as they're immortals who can't have children, so presumably they operate on totally different rules.

there are a lot of possibilities just depending on how you worldbuild. one thing I do think would be common to these aus is that nation relationships are always going to have some sort of social and political consequences. certain groups of people are going to argue that, hey, nations deserve privacy and the right to have their own relationships. other people are going to argue it's a matter of national and international security. others will argue on the same grounds of morality they apply toward humans, whatever those standards are. but I think the national security thing would absolutely be pretty prominent in any setting.

even with Arthur and Francis, even though the UK and France are in NATO, they definitely don't always see eye to eye; for one thing, people might argue the relationship affects Brexit and the UK's relationship with the EU. and of course the Germans aren't going to like it either because it indicates the French favor the British over EU unity. the Americans aren't going to like it because it might mean the UK will listen more to France than the US in NATO matters. the Russians aren't going to like it because Gay. the Danes et al probably are going to celebrate it because yay queer rights! or at least not mind it for the most part.

and then when you add Alfred into the mix, the whole thing becomes 100x worse because the US is the world's most dominant superpower; whatever the US does, there are consequences for the rest of the world. Alfred and Yao or Alfred and Ivan are probably going to be the worst possible situations politically speaking, at least right now.

like for one thing, Alfred/Ivan or Alfred/Yao absolutely torpedoes NATO, because who in their right mind would trust the US when their nation is in a relationship with another nation who has been explicitly declared an enemy? like especially in a post-Cold War world, soft power is everything, so nation relationships are going to be a huge part of global politics whether people like it or not.

on the other hand, this means you're gonna have really really weird politics. like how many people - nations, politicians, opportunistic businessmen, everyone - are going to try to seduce Alfred for their own benefit? too many. just. just entirely too many. one is too many and it’s going to be a non-zero number of people who try to seduce nations for their own benefit but especially Alfred.

[beardedmrbean]

March 14 (UPI) -- Britain may follow the United States, European Union and Canada in banning TikTok from government phones, according to the country's security minister who is looking at possible security risks posed by the Chinese-owned app.

Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat said Tuesday that he had asked the National Cyber Security Center to look into TikTok saying it was "absolutely essential" to keep Britain's "diplomatic processes free and safe".

"We need to make sure our phones are not spyware. Understanding exactly what the challenges that these apps pose, what they are asking for and how they're reaching into our lives is incredibly important," he said.

"What certainly clear is that, for many young people, TikTok is now a news source. And just as is quite right that we know who owns the news sources in the U.K. ... it's important that we know who owns news sources that are feeding into our phones."

RELATEDCanadian government bans TikTok from all devices

Tugendhat, an army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, did not rule out banning it on government phones, but said he wanted to wait for the conclusions of the NCSC.

Parliament has already closed its own TikTok account after MPs raised concerns about security last year.

Tuesday's announcement came one day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Britain would look at the bans the United States, EU and Canada had implemented for government phones.

RELATEDWhite House gives agencies 30 days to purge TikTok from gov't devices

TikTok is facing intense scrutiny from Western governments over security and data privacy worries amid fears the app could be used to collect and pass on user data to Beijing or promote a pro-China agenda.

The company denies allegations that it transfers data to the Chinese government and insists it operates no differently than other social media platforms.

The EU Commission and more than half of U.S. states have already introduced a ban over concerns around potential cyber-attacks.

RELATEDCongress to grill TikTok on list of concerns from spying to child safety

In a Feb. 27 memo, the White House's Office of Management and Budget gave federal agencies 30 days to delete TikTok from staff and contractors' work devices.

The U.S. Senate passed legislation in December banning TikTok from government-issued devices. The No TikTok on Government Devices Act by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was passed by unanimous consent, sending it on to the House for approval.

President Joe Biden signed it into law Dec. 29 as part of the federal government's fiscal 2023 spending bill.

Last month, the European Commission ordered its 32,000 staff to remove the TikTok app from devices as soon as possible and no later than March 15.

A 2020 attempt by President Donald Trump to introduce an outright ban was later blocked in the courts.