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This feels evil to see, like Im looking at a fundamental law of reality being challenged

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my first secret to happiness on teh interwebz? if you see discourse, walk away. not gonna let that ruin my day.

the second secret is that if you say this out loud, the other crabs in the bucket will try to pull you back, saying ignoring discourse is privileged, rude, you should be miserable with the rest of us. walk away from the crabs, too. not gonna let them ruin my day.

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I think the solution to kids on the Internet is to have specific, kid friendly spaces on the Internet. Kids wouldn't come across "adult content" on YouTube if barbie dot com still had flash games and this is a hill I will die on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pretty incredible news to hear during tough times

Source.

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Raven Steals the Sun a glass collaboration sculpture by Tlingit artist Preston Singletary and David Franklin.

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remember kids, the moral of "Irish and Italians weren't even considered White yet!" isn't "because in those times people were so ignorant they didn't think the Irish were white". the moral is "because white is an unreal category created to justify slavery and ongoing hoarding of power and wealth". It's not that you know better about Italians. It's that the boundaries of the higher caste have changed.

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Deadeye Roxy for fun and games

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That thing so many people say like "Don't use AI instead commission some anonymous person from the global south on fiverr for 5$ and have them do it for you" is actually so hilarious we truly are not people for impcorers LOL! "instead of using the scary image machine why not exploit some vulnerable worker taking advantage of your global positioning?" WOW THANKS THAT SOUNDS SO MUCH BETTER AND NOT DEHUMANIZING AT ALL!

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being a trans man is insane btw. youll grow up being outcasted and bullied by cis women for being different, for being a freak, for being a tranny, and even the nicer ones will often just assume that you have internalized misogyny and thats why you want to be a guy. and cis men will treat you even worse. because not only are you a "woman", youre a tranny. youre a stupid delusional little girl who she thinks a man and who needs to be fixed by an actual man. and yet people will still try to tell you you have male privilege. and youll be constantly talked over, erased, and excluded, but the moment you speak up, the moment you try to say that people need to include trans men in their trans activism, then youre a misogynist with a fragile ego who hates everything that isnt about him. its just. so fucking exhausting.

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well this fucking sucks

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(this sprite is then never used again)

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🧩 ← some kind of bug or perplaps a lizard

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eevee is like a prey animal to me