#i don't trust an algorithm

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.

i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.

i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.

nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.

the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.

what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.

that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.

but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.

i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.

the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.

if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.

even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.

children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.

which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.

individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.

if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[bidonicart]

the only thing you are loving me, loving me little me get off of me ecstasy, leprosy on top of me you're all I really need please love me

It’s alysmond hours! Slightly spicier version on the bird site @/bidonica1(pose referenced from grafit studio)

where else to find me

[wilchur]

No youtube, I don't want your shit ”Top 10 things YOU should know about Baldur's Gate 3!” videos. I want the GOOD shit, the REAL information from a guy who has been playing ttrpgs all his life, has maybe a 100 subs and knows EVERYTHING there is to know. Who records hour long voiceover videos in his room because he just loves these games so much. WHERE IS HE. I KNOW HE MUST EXIST.

[softfatboytoy]

Tag ranting again <3

[bbeeew]

Made Corp blog doodles (the family™️)

@bingle-official @totally-bingle

(Both are real to me)

[daz4i]

listen. sometimes idm ads. i do want sites i use or youtubers i watch frequently to earn money so i can keep using/watching them, and i won't spend money myself, so this is a good compromise.

the problem is!!!!! ads make these sites lag, sometimes cover pages and make them unusable, or they clog videos and pop up so often and are so long they're practically as long as the video itself, to the point i just stop watching youtubers who have too many ad breaks even if i do like their content

and i gotta say, i don't get it? like being annoyed with an ad won't make me want to get the product - and i know that's not the point, the point is to put it at the front of your mind for when you or someone you know need the product this company provides - and i do end up clicking ads for things i find interesting sometimes

and the thing is. with video ads especially. i think smaller is better for everyone. one 5 seconds ad is so much less annoying than a 20 seconds one or even just two 5 seconds ads, even if it appears multiple times per video, bc psychologically it feels more bearable, yknow? the product is still gonna be in my subconscious or w/e but now i won't associate it with being painfully annoyed, so this is better for the advertisers too. so why not go for that!

also, sometimes ads are taken straight from tv directly to youtube (probably why some are very long), and the problem with that is their volume. like. if i'm watching smth in the middle of the night and your car insurance ad is twice as loud as the video i'm watching, i'm gonna hate it even more (a friend who learned copywriting told me they make ads louder on tv bc if you lower your volume during an ad break and tune out or just change channels quickly, it's more likely to catch your attention this way. i get that but why not just do this very minor adjustment when you sell that ad to youtube. please)

as for websites, some of these ads are so fucking evil 😭 i ranted abt this before but oh my god weight loss and especially fasting apps ads should be illegal i am not even slightly exaggerating. ads literally being malware??? not even getting into how scary algorithms can get.

and as i mentioned about lags, so many ads running at the same time, or the same ad space changing rapidly make things so slow that i once again have to wonder who's benefitting from this. i can't even see what some of the ads are bro, and i don't want to, but like, you're just losing money here, and if i know a site doesn't work well with ads enabled i will either switch to a browser with adblock (tbc, talking abt mobile here. firefox's app is shitty but necessary) or, if i can't use adblock, won't use that site anymore. so again. who's benefitting from this.

idk what the point of this rant is. ads today literally exist for the sake of existing i swear. i don't think they help sell things more at this point, which is the whole point of ads in the first place. and for smaller or newer businesses, they sometimes have to raise prices to make up for paying for their advertising campaign (drew gooden's videos about buying random items he gets ads for showcase this phenomenon well i think) which makes people less likely to buy them, and i can't help but wonder if some products would be better if their companies spent less money on just advertising them and instead actually invest in quality (see also: any shady company that targets youtubers for sponsorships constantly while having an extremely bad product, or barely paying their employees a living wage, etc)

anyway yeah these are my probably not too uncommon thoughts on the matter. have a nice rest of the day

[aroaessidhe]

Do you happen to know any good alternatives to Goodreads? Like something that recommends books based on what you've liked before as well as a log?

Storygraph? It has a recommendation feature I think, but I've never used that element of any site before haha. I know there's other sites out there but I've never used anything else

[hayleykiyopioids]

Speaking of hateful algorithms! Here's the worst thing i've ever seen.

under a cut bc it's really bad (let's hope this works)

AKFDSAHF;DAFKNDG I LITERALLY SAW THIS VIDEIO ON TIKTOK!!!

i got on tiktok in quarentine bc everyone was hopping on right, and for a while was Very Okay with the way that the app just gave me what i wanted to see! i very honestly love Elise, and I'm happy that she's able to have a platform and make a living and she got to quit her job and work on her own terms!!

but this is the shit that i'm talking about! this video was about how she made a PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO FOR HER FOLLOWERS and the VAST MAJORITY of them found out she was pregnant from another video she posted ABOUT HER PREGNANCY CRAVINGS!!!

that video that everyone saw was like the third video she posted after the formal announcement video!!! and almost all of the comments were like "I can't believe I found out you were pregnant from a video about your cravings"!!! CLEARLY PEOPLE WANTED TO CELEBRATE HER PREGNANCY WITH HER AND WANTED AN ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO!!!

This right here is why the absolute bare minimum should be that users have a direct and easy way to see the content they actually want to fucking see!!!

[stuckstucktrolls]

tumblr?! why was my for you page covered in TERF bullshit? and that wasn't even the worst thing I found tonight? the fuck?

[homeybee]

ok ppl talk shit about follow forevers from the old days but i do feel like the content of my dash has stagnated because i largely have not followed anyone new who is not an Artist or Funnyman in like 5 years. like new ppl ask how you find real people on this website. and honestly IDK. how? i have like 6 ppl on this website i care about and about 3 of them care about me back ad everyone else in my follower/following lists are people i do not know or remember.

[anulithots]

I think this is my favorite drawing I've ever made.

It's Kamari!

I never know how to draw their full bodies. (hence doll for Anuli.)

So Kamari has wings, is digitigrade, and has bracelets and things that will clink against each other.

[sweetfirebird]

I just read something about some fanfic readers on TikTok, mostly younger ones, are against AO3 because it doesn't recommend fic to them. As in, it doesn't track them and auto-feed them content using an algorithm.

I am sure it's not every younger fanfiction-reading nerd. But....

The generational divide between old internet and new internet users is so stark sometimes. Like. That younger people don't remember the individual fanfiction websites days... okay. I get that. Some of them weren't even born and time is time and it moves on. It's fine.

But to grow up with an internet where you do not get a choice, or not much of a choice, except to be fed content? Oh wow that's a yikes I've never thought about before.

Yeah, there's some filter capabilities but companies override that all the time with subtle little changes. Youtube recommends stuff constantly (often conservative videos even to me who has no history of watching or liking that shit). Twitter and Facebook got rid of chronological posts and even when you try to get rid of suggested posts, they come back. Instagram is basically all ads now. And then TikTok literally doesn't even ask you to search (and as I recall, their search function sucks), and you can like videos to change what you see *a little* but ultimately the algorithm will lead you wherever it wants.

That's so sad to grow up with that. Choice and searching and relying on your judgment and the recommendations of people you like... those are good things.

I am not like "oh those youths!" here. I am "fuck these corporations!" here. Look at this shit. It's not a rec list from someone you like and trust--it's what corporate has decided you should like. And a lot of these kids have not known anything else. That's scary and infuriating.

[animentality]

Elon Musk tries to pretend he wanted to buy Twitter when actually he just talked too much shit on Twitter, and his board was fucking pissed at him for fucking the stock market with his bullshit tweets.

He then gets caught in a fucking legal battle because Twitter is also pissed at his bullshit and plus, Twitter actually isn't that profitable in terms of the social media business.

He then gets forced to buy Twitter seriously, for over 3x the fucking market value, and nasty severance packages for the executive staff.

He gets to pretend he "fired" them when actually he's forced to pay them all 200 million plus certain profits for an extended time frame.

All because he's a trust fund brat who doesn't know how to conduct himself like a fucking business professional.

He then also fires the legal and safety departments AND the algorithm engineers and replaces them with his Tesla engineers.

I'm sure that'll go well.

Twitter's algorithm may suck donkey dick but with Elon firing 75% of the Twitter staff, well.

I'm sure they'll figure it out.

It's Tesla, right, they don't make mistakes 😤

Anyway, so I think Elon also fails to recognize that there is a very real chance that if he doesn't conduct business on Twitter similar to the standards of the previous Twitter policies that he "hates" then Twitter might be fucking banned in Europe.

Their hate speech laws are tighter than American laws.

I for one hope the entire world bans Twitter.

And it gets funnier guys.

Because there are already major advertising companies threatening to leave Twitter if Elon Musk does what he's threatening.

Which is to bring Trump back on.

See they weren't that happy when Trump incited that January 6th riot at the Capitol building.

Plus there are already people spamming the n word and neo Nazi garbage and racist anti semitic homophobic shit.

Capitol fucking One isn't gonna promote itself beside a fucking swastika.

This is kind of amazing to watch.

Ads are just about the only thing that make Twitter profitable.

So right now we just wait and see.

I think he's trying to bring dogecoin and Bitcoin and nft shit directly to Twitter, like use those to monetize it, but.

But I'm not sure how well that'll work in his favor.

We'll see but.

The situation is funny in a dark way.

Very succession levels of dick measuring and feather primping.

I wish Elon Musk a very merry bankruptcy though!

Hope liquidating assets and begging other companies for money satisfied his humiliation kink.

44 billion...hm.

It's like he's trying to become Kanye West.