#online communities lawyers

[casefoxinc]

Check out our list of the top online forums for lawyers and discover a wealth of resources for networking, learning, and staying up-to-date on the latest legal trends and developments. Connect with other legal professionals, exchange ideas and tips, and grow your knowledge and skills with these active and vibrant online communities.

[guinevereslancelot]

why do i have an almost date tomorrow 😬

[jayswing101]

.

[aiconversationalintelligence]

AI Chat: Transforming Conversations for the Modern World

In an era characterized by rapid technological advancements, communication has undergone a remarkable transformation. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way we interact, connect, and collaborate online. Among the myriad of AI-driven communication tools, EXA AI Chat stands out as a powerful platform that is redefining the landscape of digital conversations. Let's explore how EXA AI Chat is transforming communication for the modern world, leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to enhance productivity, facilitate seamless interactions, and empower communities.

The Evolution of EXA AI Chat

EXA AI Chat represents the culmination of years of research and development in AI technology. Powered by advanced algorithms and machine learning models, EXA AI Chat is capable of understanding natural language, interpreting user intent, and providing contextually relevant responses. From personalized assistance to intelligent recommendations, EXA AI Chat is revolutionizing the way we communicate online.

Personalized Assistance and Productivity

One of the key features of EXA AI Chat is its ability to offer personalized assistance tailored to individual needs. Whether it's answering customer inquiries, scheduling appointments, or providing real-time support, EXA AI Chat streamlines tasks and enhances productivity. By automating repetitive tasks and freeing up valuable time, EXA AI Chat empowers users to focus on more strategic and creative endeavors.

Seamless Interactions and Engagement

EXA AI Chat facilitates seamless interactions and engagement through its intuitive interface and intelligent capabilities. Whether it's engaging in casual conversations or collaborating on projects, EXA AI Chat adapts to user preferences and conversational styles, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable experience. With features like natural language processing and sentiment analysis, EXA AI Chat fosters meaningful connections and builds rapport with users.

Empowering Communities and Collaboration

Beyond individual interactions, EXA AI Chat empowers communities and fosters collaboration through its community engagement features. By creating online forums, chat rooms, and virtual communities, EXA AI Chat brings together like-minded individuals to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects. This sense of community fosters collaboration, innovation, and collective problem-solving, driving progress in various fields.

The Future of Communication with EXA AI Chat

As AI technology continues to evolve, the future of communication with EXA AI Chat looks promising. With ongoing advancements in natural language processing, machine learning, and conversational AI, EXA AI Chat will become even more intelligent, intuitive, and integrated. From personalized customer experiences to AI-driven content creation and virtual event hosting, EXA AI Chat will play a central role in shaping the future of communication in the digital age.

In conclusion, EXA AI Chat is revolutionizing conversations for the modern world, offering personalized assistance, enhancing productivity, and empowering communities. As we embrace the potential of AI technology, we can look forward to a future where communication is more efficient, engaging, and meaningful than ever before.

Join the conversation and experience the transformative power of EXA AI Chat today!

[webmarketingar]

Is your law firm experiencing frustration with its current community collections software? If your staff's valuable time and resources are being consumed by outdated case management systems, ReadyCOLLECT offers a comprehensive online solution. Our robust and adaptable software not only simplifies collections and covenant violation processes but also optimizes efficiency, saving your firm both time and money. With our highly customizable solution, you gain access to powerful document generation, tailored workflows, manager approvals, and comprehensive tracking of all legal documents, costs, and fees within a secure and searchable database. Benefit from multiple permission levels with unlimited seats, a client payment portal, and streamlined Certified Mail processes. Regardless of your firm's size, the RC2 platform can effectively consolidate, organize, and modernize your collections and covenant violation procedures. Discover how ReadyCOLLECT can transform your firm by scheduling a demo at https://bit.ly/readycollect today.

[withbriefthanksgiving]

The director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (UN OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber, has resigned in a letter dated 28 October 2023

the resignation letter can be found embedded in this tweet by Rami Atari (@.Raminho) dated 31 October 2023.

The letters are here:

Transcription:

United Nations | Nations Unies

HEADQUARTERS I SIEGE I NEW YORK, NY 10017

28 October 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Mules Collins in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we phave not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG [UN Secretary General] is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name", are all leading the way. All we have to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR. has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, incisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dicmantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

End of transcription.

Emphasis (bolding) is my own. I have added links, where relevant, to explanations of concepts the former Director refers to.

[photomatt]

Why “Go Nuts, Show Nuts” Doesn’t Work in 2022

For those who don’t know or remember, Tumblr used to have a policy around porn that was literally “Go nuts, show nuts. Whatever.” That was memorable and hilarious, and for many people, Tumblr both hosted and helped with the discovery of a unique type of adult content.

In 2018, when Tumblr was owned by Verizon, they swung in the other direction and instituted an adult content ban that took out not only porn but also a ton of art and artists – including a ban on what must have been fun for a lawyer to write, female presenting nipples. This policy is currently still in place, though the Tumblr and Automattic teams are working to make it more open and common-sense, and the community labels launch is a first step toward that.

That said, no modern internet service in 2022 can have the rules that Tumblr did in 2007. I am personally extremely libertarian in terms of what consenting adults should be able to share, and I agree with “go nuts, show nuts” in principle, but the casually porn-friendly era of the early internet is currently impossible. Here’s why:

Credit card companies are anti-porn. You’ve probably heard how Pornhub can’t accept credit cards anymore. Or seen the new rules from Mastercard. Whatever crypto-utopia might come in the coming decades, today if you are blocked from banks, credit card processing, and financial services, you’re blocked from the modern economy. The vast majority of Automattic’s revenue comes from people buying our services and auto-renewing on credit cards, including the ads-free browsing upgrade that Tumblr recently launched. If we lost the ability to process credit cards, it wouldn’t just threaten Tumblr, but also the 2,000+ people in 97 countries that work at Automattic across all our products.

App stores, particularly Apple’s, are anti-porn. Tumblr started in 2007, the same year the iPhone was released. Originally, the iPhone didn’t have an App Store, and the speed of connectivity and quality of the screen meant that people didn’t use their smartphone very much and mostly interacted with Tumblr on the web, using desktop and laptop computers (really). Today 40% of our signups and 85% of our page views come from people on mobile apps, not on the web. Apple has its own rules for what’s allowed in their App Store, and the interpretation of those rules can vary depending on who is reviewing your app on any given day. Previous decisions on what’s allowed can be reversed any time you submit an app update, which we do several times a month. If Apple permanently banned Tumblr from the App Store, we’d probably have to shut the service down. If you want apps to allow more adult content, please lobby Apple. No one in the App Store has any effective power, even multi-hundred-billion companies like Facebook/Meta can be devastated when Apple changes its policies. Aside: Why do Twitter and Reddit get away with tons of super hardcore content? Ask Apple, because I don’t know. My guess is that Twitter and Reddit are too big for Apple to block so they decided to make an example out of Tumblr, which has “only” 102 million monthly visitors. Maybe Twitter gets blocked by Apple sometimes too but can’t talk about it because they’re a public company and it would scare investors.

There are lots of new rules around verifying consent and age in adult content. The rise of smartphones also means that everyone has a camera that can capture pictures and video at any time. Non-consensual sharing has grown exponentially and has been a huge problem on dedicated porn sites like Pornhub – and governments have rightly been expanding laws and regulations to make sure everyone being shown in online adult content is of legal age and has consented to the material being shared. Tumblr has no way to go back and identify the featured persons or the legality of every piece of adult content that was shared on the platform and taken down in 2018, nor does it have the resources or expertise to do that for new uploads.

Porn requires different service providers up and down the stack. In addition to a company primarily serving adult content not having access to normal financial services and being blocked by app stores, they also need specialized service providers – for example, for their bandwidth and network connections. Most traditional investors won’t fund primarily adult businesses, and may not even be allowed to by their LP agreements. (When Starbucks started selling alcohol at select stores, some investors were forced to sell their stock.)

If you wanted to start an adult social network in 2022, you’d need to be web-only on iOS and side load on Android, take payment in crypto, have a way to convert crypto to fiat for business operations without being blocked, do a ton of work in age and identity verification and compliance so you don’t go to jail, protect all of that identity information so you don’t dox your users, and make a ton of money. I estimate you’d need at least $7 million a year for every 1 million daily active users to support server storage and bandwidth (the GIFs and videos shared on Tumblr use a ton of both) in addition to hosting, moderation, compliance, and developer costs. 

I do hope that a dedicated service or company is started that will replace what people used to get from porn on Tumblr. It may already exist and I don’t know about it. They’ll have an uphill battle under current regimes, and if you think that’s a bad thing please try to change the regimes. Don’t attack companies following legal and business realities as they exist.

[senlinyu]

I'm excited to announce that I have signed a book deal with Del Rey at Penguin Random House in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK for my debut novel, Alchemised, a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them. It will grapple with themes of trauma and survival, legacy, and the way that love can drive one to extreme darkness, and it is, as you may be able to tell, a reimagined version of Manacled.

I know I’ve been rather quiet about my publishing journey, and a lot of that has been because I didn’t want to spark any concerns or worry that I might be abruptly taking away a story that is such a deep part of myself and that I know has meant so much to so many people. This process has unfolded very slowly and quietly because I have tried to be mindful as I could be in every step of the way. 

As most of you know, I have been a reader in fandom long before I ever began to write. Fanfiction is incredibly special to me, and I have tried to do my best not to undermine its legal protection or allow my works to do so either. During the last several years, there has been a growing issue with illegal sales of Manacled, putting both me and the incredible community that shares fanfiction freely in legal jeopardy. 

After consulting with the OTW as well as other lawyers, it has grown clear that as a transformative writer I have limited options in protecting my stories from this kind of exploitation, but I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t want to just take the story down, in part because I worried that might only exacerbate the issue, but I didn’t know what other options I had. Then I suddenly had this idea of alchemy, which was peculiarly appropriate; an academic world filled with unique transmutational abilities, and a necromantic war against people who had discovered the secrets of immortality, and I could see a path to reimagining the story while still holding on to as much of the original spirit of Manacled as possible. 

I began redrafting the concept privately around Christmas 2022, and then as if the universe had aligned, just as I was finishing, Caitlin Mahony and Rivka Bergman of WME reached out to me and were delightfully enthusiastic about concepts and ideas for my new alchemical world and the ways I had reimagined the story. 

I'm thrilled to be working with Emily Archbold, my visionary editor at Del Rey, along with Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph in the UK, to polish this novel for publication in Fall 2025. I feel uniquely privileged that both my publishing teams are familiar with Manacled and understand how special it is to so many people, and how important it is that this reimagining captures the same spirit while also having its own wings. 

Manacled is not going anywhere at present. It will remain online throughout 2024, at which point it will, if you’ll pardon the pun, alchemise for 2025 and be removed from AO3. 

I'm so thankful to all of you who've enjoyed my works, and I hope that I can continue to rely on your support as I take my next steps as an author.

[genderqueerdykes]

genuine piece of advice for punks, activists, and everyone else honestly: any form of leftist infighting is a waste of your time.

focus on the task at hand: improving living and quality of life conditions for your community. unionize. donate to food banks. cooperate with organizations like food not bombs to distribute free hot meals. volunteer at libraries. participate in homeless outreach. give people access to resources in your community. organize and participate in protests. create organizations, groups, and gathering spots for queer folk in your area who need safe places to go and find community.

help people find access to HRT, surgery and other gender affirming care. carry, hand out, and administer narcan (naloxone). help recovering people get to rehabilitation, methadone clinics and so on. help addicted people practice harm reduction and use safely. help give out menstrual kits to homeless and low income people who have periods. help people get into housing programs. help disabled people apply for disability (SSI and SSDI) and disability lawyers. help disabled people find work or income resources that are accessible to them. donate blood and/or plasma if you can. care for people with HIV and AIDS.

help people apply for food stamps, medicaid, bill and rent assistance. help disabled people find case managers and caregivers. call local lawmakers to voice your opinions on current events. advocate for disadvantaged queers in your area. establish and participate in mutual aid funds. spread awareness and advocate online. write about and share your experiences with disadvantages, abuse and other problems you've faced in life for who you are. gather and organize with people with shared experiences. start or volunteer at a community garden. deliver meals to the elderly. volunteer at a homeless shelter.

organize fundraisers for, spread awareness of, and donate to:

Palestine

Sudan

Congo

i don't care if someone's activism looks different from yours: there are a TON of ways to improve and make change in your and the global community. doing ONE of these is enough, finding a singular way to improve your community is a better use of your time than arguing. everyone can find ways to be good to each other.

rehashing the same talking points, reading between the lines, accusing someone of identifying with politics they've never advocated for, and making baseless accusations isn't helping. it's not fixing anything. mobilize. advocate. stand up for your community and its rights. take action. now. i mean it. we must.

help each other.

[annaandmiah]

ED MEDIA

MOVIES

★ little miss perfect ★

an overambitious high school freshman tries to control her life by controlling her weight.

➜ watch on soap2day

★ starving in suburbia ★

17-year-old Hannah joins a dangerous “thinspiration” online community where users treat anorexia as a lifestyle rather than a disorder.

➜ Watch on Vimeo

★ sharing the secret ★

beth turns to binging and purging as a way to control one aspect of her life, but her habits quickly spiral out of control and force her to seek treatment.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hmujb3ndoo0

★ for the love of nancy★

follows the main character as she starts college, becomes more and more withdrawn, starts a regimented exercise routine, stops eating, and begins losing an unhealthy amount of weight.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cgvxvq33swy

★ a secret between friends ★

when two teenage girls become fast friends and decide to diet together, things go from bad to worse, ultimately leading to the near death of one of the girls.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vmf4cd1fxge

★ dying to dance ★

➜ a young woman succumbs to pressure at ballet school and develops anorexia nervosa.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hi5ww4z-rx8

★ girl, interrupted★

based on writer susanna kaysen's account of her 18-month stay at a mental hospital in the late 1960s.

➜ Watch on Netflix

★ Kate's secret ★

a beautiful woman married to a successful lawyer and the perfect suburban mother who turns out to be a closeted bulimic.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zpchtd3xw4q

★ the best little girl in the world ★

a young girl develops an eating disorder, alternately starving herself or throwing up food. her parents, angry and desperate, send her to a hospital. unfortunately, she befriends a patient who convinces her to hide her illness.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oy7gj99pt_a

★ thirteen ★

an innocent seventh grader undergoes an abrupt personality change when she begins hanging out with a wild classmate

➜ Watch on Disney Plus

★ to the bone ★

ellen is an unruly 20-year-old anorexic girl who spent the better part of her teenage years being shepherded through various recovery programmes, only to find herself several pounds lighter every time.

➜ Watch on Netflix

TV SHOWS

★ Skins ★

 lives of a group of teenagers in Bristol, England, are followed through two years of sixth form, with the story line of this critically acclaimed series delving into such controversial subjects as substance abuse, sexuality, teenage pregnancy, personality and eating disorders, and mental illness

➜ Watch on Stan

★ Red band society ★

 a group of teenagers live together as patients at a hospital's pediatric ward and learn how to deal with their illnesses, the experiences that they have, and the people that they meet.

➜ Watch on Disney Plus

★ Insatiable ★

For years Patty was overweight, which caused her to be bullied, ignored and underestimated by the people around her. But she is now thin and seeking revenge against those who ever made her feel bad about herself through fat-shaming.

➜ Watch on Netflix

DOCUMENTRYS

★ Thin ★

this documentary follows four women receiving eating disorder treatment at the renfrew center in coconut creek, florida. while each woman has their own “final straw” that brought them to renfrew, they all suffer from eating disorders that profoundly affect their lives to the point of near-death, in some cases.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gsqwhmesizq

★ Dana the 8-year-old anorexic ★

Little Dana became a walking skeleton after suffering from anorexia - at EIGHT. She told her distraught parents she would rather DIE than eat. And she even hid in a laundry basket at meal times to avoid having food.

➜ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKSwPBUhCBo&list=PLfjwnsEd5VNYTtPpke17nY2AHRNNpcWIK&index=3

[radykalny-feminizm]

I had the dubious pleasure of learning about the most insane and disgusting person I've heard about in a long time, and I don't want to be alone with this knowledge, so.

This is Christian Weston Chandler (aka Christine aka Chris Chan)

He's an internet personality who was once popular in certain online circles because of his absolutely unhinged behavior and susceptibility to being trolled.

A handful of facts:

He's an extreme incel who, for most of his life, desperately tried to find a partner while claiming that he only needs a woman for sex

At one point he paid a woman so he could rape her

He created and published sexually explicit drawings of female bodies on the internet, including those of women he knew in real life who, of course, did not consent to such things

In addition to being a misogynist, he's also a racist and homophobe. In his own words: if I could have it my way, I'd make it illegal and forbidden to have homo men; women are safe

Surprise, one day he started identifying as a woman and an ally of the LGBT community. He assumed a new identity solely because he thought it would give him sexual access to lesbians. But hey, TRAs keep saying that such things don't happen, so we're good

He thought he was able to magically grow a vagina and showed off his infected taint gash as his new vagina

If you think that's already pretty bad, the worst was yet to come. In 2021 he was arrested for raping his 79-year-old dementia-ridden mother. That's right. If you've ever wondered about the embodiment of evil and degeneration, here it fucking is. The justice system didn't buy into his bullshit identity and treated him as a male. Unfortunately, he was released from jail in March 2023, and in August the same year his incest charge was dismissed as a result of his lawyer having filed for an autism disorder deferred disposition. Which is fucking outrageous and bullshit because hello?? Autism doesn't make you want to rape your own elderly mother??

I don't even have a proper conclusion to all of this. No words in any language can express my absolute contempt and disgust for this moid.

And for TRAs who don't understand why women don't want "trans women" in their spaces - this is why.

[skippyv20]

This is a message from @sandiedog3-deactivated20240814

Hi Skippy, just to let everyone know that I felt it necessary to deactivate my account last night. The reason is that 3 of the Twitter accounts I follow and have posted information from on Tumblr are being prosecuted by the UK Thought Police and are due to go to Court.

People who follow or reblog from them are also allegedly under surveillance which would therefor include myself.

It really is ridiculous here so I have deactivated all of my Social Media accounts. I won't stop blogging but need time to regroup and doubly ensure that I won't end up in Court. The sentences are ridiculous and it seems that the current PM is coming down really hard now on Social Media.

Here is the advice I have been given if you are a UK Blogger.

Ensure you use a VPN

Make sure you have an anonymous email address if possible for example Proton do one

Delete all Social Media accounts if there has been anyone challenging what you say or any hint that anyone is working to report you to the Police . There are literally groups on Social Media especially Facebook and Twitter now of Leftists have been reporting bloggers or Social Media accounts to the Police such as the 3 I have mentioned and their followers.

Reset your phone and wipe it completely

Start again if you wish but take extra care and be vigilant that anything you post will not be used against you at this time

Read and digest the Human Rights Act Sections 9, 10 and 14 as this will inform you about your Rights in Law albeit they are using current updates to some Laws regarding Hate Speech Online etc (I will post about that in my new blog)

The advice below is not Professional Legal Advice just advice given to anyone anxious about possible visits from Police for prosecution

If the police do visit DO NOT allow them into your house as they can then search your premises and confiscate your phone, computer etc. If you don't allow entry they will have to provide a warrant to search your property and take away your communication devices

If they take you to a Police Station for questioning DO NOT SAY ANYTHING EVER AT ANYTIME THAN NO COMMENT OR NOT GUILTY - the onus is then on the Police to provide proof that you have used hate speech or incited anyone to riot etc

Get an independent lawyer or advice as the Duty Solicitor would advise you most likely to plead guilty for obvious reasons

Opt for a High Court case by pleading not guilty - this will cause more hassle and they may drop the charges due to insufficient evidence

Apparantly no one as yet has pleaded not guilty and/or opted for a High Court hearing as most are unaware of their legal rights and have been advised to plead guilty

I am writing this from memory so please feel free to chip in or correct any mistakes

I have asked Skippy to post this ask for me. My 1,500 followers will most likely know who I am and when I restart with a new blog I will get the message out to you all

Please know I am not giving up - I am a member of the UK Free Speech Union and they are working in a Legal Capacity to protect the Free Speech of UK Citizens as is Elon Musk and the Reform Party UK

Of course I will be praying for everyone on Skippy's Prayer list as always and will be back

Love you all

This is so shocking that the UK is at this point! Prayers for all!🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

CDA 230 bans Facebook from blocking interoperable tools

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then TOMORROW (May 3) in CALGARY, then SATURDAY (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most widely misunderstood technology law in the world, which is wild, given that it's only 26 words long!

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

CDA 230 isn't a gift to big tech. It's literally the only reason that tech companies don't censor on anything we write that might offend some litigious creep. Without CDA 230, there'd be no #MeToo. Hell, without CDA 230, just hosting a private message board where two friends get into serious beef could expose to you an avalanche of legal liability.

CDA 230 is the only part of a much broader, wildly unconstitutional law that survived a 1996 Supreme Court challenge. We don't spend a lot of time talking about all those other parts of the CDA, but there's actually some really cool stuff left in the bill that no one's really paid attention to:

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/supreme-court-decision-striking-down-cda

One of those little-regarded sections of CDA 230 is part (c)(2)(b), which broadly immunizes anyone who makes a tool that helps internet users block content they don't want to see.

Enter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and their client, Ethan Zuckerman, an internet pioneer turned academic at U Mass Amherst. Knight has filed a lawsuit on Zuckerman's behalf, seeking assurance that Zuckerman (and others) can use browser automation tools to block, unfollow, and otherwise modify the feeds Facebook delivers to its users:

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/gu63ujqj8o

If Zuckerman is successful, he will set a precedent that allows toolsmiths to provide internet users with a wide variety of automation tools that customize the information they see online. That's something that Facebook bitterly opposes.

Facebook has a long history of attacking startups and individual developers who release tools that let users customize their feed. They shut down Friendly Browser, a third-party Facebook client that blocked trackers and customized your feed:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-facebook-using-privacy-sword-kill-independent-innovation

Then in in 2021, Facebook's lawyers terrorized a software developer named Louis Barclay in retaliation for a tool called "Unfollow Everything," that autopiloted your browser to click through all the laborious steps needed to unfollow all the accounts you were subscribed to, and permanently banned Unfollow Everywhere's developer, Louis Barclay:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

Now, Zuckerman is developing "Unfollow Everything 2.0," an even richer version of Barclay's tool.

This rich record of legal bullying gives Zuckerman and his lawyers at Knight something important: "standing" – the right to bring a case. They argue that a browser automation tool that helps you control your feeds is covered by CDA(c)(2)(b), and that Facebook can't legally threaten the developer of such a tool with liability for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the other legal weapons it wields against this kind of "adversarial interoperability."

Writing for Wired, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University speaks to a variety of experts – including my EFF colleague Sophia Cope – who broadly endorse the very clever legal tactic Zuckerman and Knight are bringing to the court.

I'm very excited about this myself. "Adversarial interop" – modding a product or service without permission from its maker – is hugely important to disenshittifying the internet and forestalling future attempts to reenshittify it. From third-party ink cartridges to compatible replacement parts for mobile devices to alternative clients and firmware to ad- and tracker-blockers, adversarial interop is how internet users defend themselves against unilateral changes to services and products they rely on:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Now, all that said, a court victory here won't necessarily mean that Facebook can't block interoperability tools. Facebook still has the unilateral right to terminate its users' accounts. They could kick off Zuckerman. They could kick off his lawyers from the Knight Institute. They could permanently ban any user who uses Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Obviously, that kind of nuclear option could prove very unpopular for a company that is the very definition of "too big to care." But Unfollow Everything 2.0 and the lawsuit don't exist in a vacuum. The fight against Big Tech has a lot of tactical diversity: EU regulations, antitrust investigations, state laws, tinkerers and toolsmiths like Zuckerman, and impact litigation lawyers coming up with cool legal theories.

Together, they represent a multi-front war on the very idea that four billion people should have their digital lives controlled by an unaccountable billionaire man-child whose major technological achievement was making a website where he and his creepy friends could nonconsensually rate the fuckability of their fellow Harvard undergrads.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Image: D-Kuru (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSI_Bravo_17_(0017FK-007)-USB-C_port_large_PNr%C2%B00761.jpg

Minette Lontsie (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Headquarters.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[aiconversationalintelligence]

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[were-wolverine]

the eldritch Guardians of gotham notice batman when he first emerges- they see how he protects their city, so they gift him the abilities of a bat: wings, night vision, enhanced senses, fangs

bruce wayne becomes a shut-in after his parents die. then he travels the world only to come back the same old shut-in. he works from home, and doesn’t leave the manor. every window is covered. only lucius fox and alfred pennyworth ever enter or leave the house

one night the bat follows sirens to a circus tent, and he watches as a young boy is escorted out, crying for his parents. the next day alfred pennyworth shows up at gotham’s social services and requests to become a foster parent. a month later (money might speed the process along) dick grayson is out of juvie and the orphanage and into the safety of wayne manor

bruce tries to hide his wings when the boy arrives, but dick is fascinated by them and thinks they’re “awesome”. bruce explains how he got them, and that he is batman.

later, when batman gains a partner- robin- the Guardians of gotham bless the boy with gifts similar to his mentor: robin wings, enhanced senses, and nails that sharpen into talons

dick grayson becomes a shut-in like bruce, and is home-schooled by alfred. he doesn’t mind, he didn’t have friends his age in the circus either, and alfred and bruce are good company. bruce does let him get pets, though, a three-legged puppy he names Haley and a bloodhound named Ace

when he grows out of robin and away from gotham, the Guardians give him different wings (steller’s jay) to show they support his independence. he lives at titans tower for a while before moving to blüdhaven with his best friend donna troy. dick remains a shut-in, but takes online college courses and goes out often as a new hero- nightwing. he goes out in the mask during the day, something he never did in gotham, and spends most of his time as nightwing- not that he minds. (troia is only his nighttime vigilante partner since donna has an actual day job)

the cycle repeats with jason. however, when jason claws his way out of his grave, the Guardians guide him back to the manor where bruce finds him. when it seems like jason may never recover from his comatose state, the Guardians show bruce a lazarus pit beneath gotham, and despite his hesitation they assure him no harm will come to jason if they have a say in it

jason is revived without the nasty side effects (thanks, eldritch beings) and dick moves back to gotham. jason also leaves robin behind for a different name- red hood- and is gifted new wings (cardinal). in this au the bats & birds are more morally grey and will kill people, but only the worst of the worst/repeat offenders. jason still becomes a crime lord but he only kills when necessary and has no pit madness.

dick and jason notice their young neighbor tim drake is often home alone/without his parents and convince bruce to let him in on their secret and have him stay over at the manor. bruce eventually agrees and they later adopt tim. tim never becomes robin but he does know about their vigilante identities (og way- recognized dick as robin and connected the dots).

tim will help out on comms and basically this au’s Oracle. babs does not become a vigilante in this, instead she becomes a lawyer, but she is still paralyzed by the joker as a civilian (pre-jason’s death, bc bruce kills the joker after that)

steph works with the bats as Spoiler, and is eventually let it on their identities. she and tim bond over being the only ‘normal’ ones

when cass comes along, she is gifted the same powers as bruce, including bat wings. she goes by Black Bat and mostly communicates using sign language

bruce is never lost in time and damian eventually arrives in gotham. damian is given robin and the gifts that accompany it

since duke already has powers, the Guardians don’t give him any, but they protect him as their own

JUST. CRYPTID BATFAMILY <3

[ynbabe]

Fake texts au- pt.16 bffs with the rookies+ revenge is a dish best served cold and glittery

When you woke up, you were tagged in many stories, almost all the drivers had put up stories in your support, chastising the paparazzi that had stormed you and asked inappropriate questions, even a lot of the Barcelona team (the ones you knew) were in your support.

Gavi is messaging you to complement your right hook, and Pedri to ask if you were okay.

The man you had punched was fired from his job and now wasn't allowed within 100 feet of you (courtesy of Max's lawyers), you had also gotten most of your things back, only left without your laptop.

And your 'friends'? Well, you knew just what to do to them. You still had some people you could trust back in the UK so you made them fill up all their dorm rooms with glitter and itching powder, and then blocked them everywhere, any and all communication would now be through Max's lawyers and man were you happy about that.

You were sure the next swing you took would be at them.

The university had allowed you to complete the rest of your course online, only giving the finals on ground, they were quite happy not to be spoken to by the lawyers knowing it was partially their security's fault to allow so many paparazzi to storm you in the first place.

You didn't feel comfortable going to the Las Vegas race and even Abu Dabi, just wanting a break but now? Oh now you were back for revenge, revenge on everyone who thought your life was theirs to judge.

You opened your group chat, you’d spent time FaceTiming and talking to the boys individually but it felt to awkward, to real to be in a group again but fuck that, these boys were your best friends! Lando, Charles and Max were like the older brothers you never had! Even Lorenzo checked up on you almost daily. You weren’t going to give all this up just because of some idiots.

You smiled as normalcy set into the atmosphere again. You called up a few people asking them if they could make and they all could, making you happier.

Things were finally getting better and now you could support your friends without feeling guilty about it.

You had missed the season end but had called Max to congratulate him, but hadn't felt safe enough to go to the party however much he asked but now you were going to be there for them, the people who've always been there for you.

This ones a lil shorter than usual but I needed a filler to move ahead😭

and we're back to the og texts!!! Hope yall like this one! Also I still can't comment idk why.

Taglist: @dark-night-sky-99 @cashtons-wife @i-wish-this-was-me @thehufflepuffavenger1 @eugene-emt-roe @fangirl-dot-com @landosgirlxoxo @aquangxl @sachaa-ff @tyna-19 @assholeinatrenchcoat @allenajade-ite @megatrilss1885 @squirreljoe @jsjcue @s4turnsl0ver @yl90 @elijahslover @trouble-sistar @notizzyj @chilwell-mount @hiireadstuff