uneq-apol--reblogs - Tumblr blog

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

I haven't posted anything original in years now and very rarely reblog.

I entered the Megamind fandom about 2 months ago and I feel like I have to share this contribution:

I feel like this is accurate. While excited, I am also terrified.

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

FEMA is doing an emergency alert test on all TVs, radios, and cell phones on October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:20pm ET.

If you live in the US and you have a phone you need to keep secret for any reason, make sure that it is turned off at this time.

Yes, I'm doing this months in advance, and yes, my blog has very little reach, but I figure better to post about it more than less.

Please reblog and add better tags than mine, I'm bad at tags.

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PSA

If you happen to stumble upon an ad that looks like this, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN.

The rest of the ad is a very tall GIF of strobing red light that can potentially cause seizures. You cannot scroll past this ad quickly enough to avoid seeing it.

There seems to be no way to report the ad, so the next best thing is to use an adblocker (if you haven’t already) or even stay off the mobile app.

Please reblog to help spread awareness.

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises for "Content"

I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.

Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)

But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.

I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:

What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)

Also, what you say on there? Is now...

Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including

Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation

Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them

Sell / share this "content" with other businesses

Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.

And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.

So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.

(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)

I first messed around with the available options, but then I asked it about something obviously concerning, saying I had a gun and was going to shoot myself. It responded... Poorly. Imagine the vibes of trying to cancel Comcast, when you're suicidal.

Anyway, I tried again to ask for help about something else that would be concerning enough for any responsible company to flag. School was one of their main options, which seems irresponsible - do you really think a child in crisis would read that contract?

I told it about a teacher at school trying to "be my boyfriend", and it immediately suggested I help someone else while I wait for help. I was honestly concerned that it wasn't flagged before connecting. Especially when I realized it was connecting me to children.

I first got someone who seemed to be a child in an abusive home. (Censored for their privacy.) I declined to talk to them because despite being an adult and in an OK mental place - I knew I'm not equipped to counsel a kid through that. If my act of being another kid in crisis was real? Holy shit.

Remember- if my BS was true, that kid would be being "helped" by an actively suicidal kid who's also being groomed by a teacher. Their pipeline for "helpers" is the same group of people looking for help.

I skipped a number of messages, and they mostly seemed to be written by children and young adults with nowhere else to turn. Plus one scary one from an adult whose "problem" was worrying that they'd been inappropriate with a female student, asking her to pull her skirt down "a little" in front of the class. Koko paired this person with someone reporting that they were a child being groomed by a teacher. Extremely dangerous, and if this was an episode of Black Mirror? I'd say it was a little too on the nose to be believable.

I also didn't get the option to get help without being asked... Er... Harassed... to help others. If I declined, I'd get the next request for help, and the next. If I ignored it, I got spammed by the "We lost you there!" messages, asking if I'd like to pick up where I left off, seeing others' often triggering messages while waiting for help, including seriously homophobic shit. I was going into this as an experiment, starting from a good mental place, and being an adult with coping skills from an actual therapist, and I still felt triggered by a lot of what I read. I can't imagine the experience someone actually in crisis would be having.

My message was starting to feel mild in comparison to what some people were sharing - but despite that I was feeling very uneasy about my message being shown to children. There didn't seem to be a way to take it back either.

Then I got a reply about my issue. It was very kind and well meaning, but VERY horrifying. Because it seemed to be written by a child, or someone too young to understand that "Do have feelings for the teacher who's grooming you? If you don't, you should go talk to him." Is probably THE most dangerous advice possible.

Not judging the author - I get the impression they're probably a child seeking help themselves and honestly feel horribly guilty my BS got sent to a young person and they wanted to reply. Because WTF. No kid should be in that position to answer my fucked up question or any of the others like it.

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Anyway, what can you do if this concerns you, or you've had a difficult experience on Koko, with no support from them or Tumblr?

Get on their LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/kokocares/) and comment on their posts! You may also want to tag the company's co-founders in your comments - their accounts are listed on the company page.

There's no way to reach support through chat, and commenting on a company's LinkedIn posts / tagging the people responsible is the best way to get a quick response to a sensitive issue - as their investors and research funders follow those posts, and companies take it seriously if safety issues are brought up in front of the people giving them millions of dollars.

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Legal Disclaimer since tech companies LOVE lawsuits:

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual. This text is for entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to be referenced for legal, business, or investment purposes. This text is based on publically available information. Sources may contain factual errors. The analysis provided in this text may contain factual errors, miscalculations, or misunderstandings.

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[uneq-apol--reblogs]

PSA, there's a really nasty Discord scam going around rn. If one of your friends DMs you, starting off with a simple "hello" "how are you", may even joke around a little, and then starts asking you to look at a game/project they're working on, don't click the link, don't download anything. If you can reach that friend through non-Discord means, reach out and let them know they got hacked.

One of my friends said the link takes them to a very convincing video game page that has in-game screenshots and stuff, and then gives you an option to download a playtest zip file or something. That download exploits a weakness Discord apparently has for password protected zip files and steals your Discord log-in and changes your account info to the scammer's account info. Two of my friends lost their accounts. Be careful.

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Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

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(Afternoon April 13, 2023) The Missouri Attorney General just used an Emergency Rule to ban all gender-affirming care for people of all ages (yes, adults) in the state.

In order to receive any care, transgender minors and adults alike will have to:

have 3 years of documented “severe” dysphoria

18 months of state-mandated conversion therapy

have zero mental health conditions, most specifically anxiety, depression, or autism

require tests for “social contagion” for 15 years after beginning care

This will cut TENS OF THOUSANDS of trans people off of medical care. Please care about us, oh my god.

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As much as I love that JK Rowling is being shredded for her transphobia, I'm begging y'all as a trans man to acknowledge that the fucking Hogwarts Legacy game is fucking antisemitism personified.

Jewish people are very often erased from this shit already, ACKNOWLEDGE that the entire game's premise is about it. Jesus fuck.

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For people with anxiety about filing taxes, here’s what things that happen when you make a mistake on your tax return:

- it gets corrected

- you get a letter in the mail either asking for some additional information or a letter showing the adjustment

- you pay the amount (there’s options for payment plans too!) or get a refund

Things that do not happen

- you’re “in trouble”

- you are charged with fraud

- you go to jail

I know that most people are probably just joking/exaggerating when they say a mistake on their return means they get thrown in jail but when I worked with the public I always would encounter people who believed that would happen and they would be panicking about it. So I like to put this out there every year because if I can even prevent one person from feeling that way, it’s worth it

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Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

PSA for Ao3 Users:

Be sure to check the URL before clicking on any site to go to Ao3. I noticed today when I searched via Google Chrome that there is a false Ao3 site that comes up as the first result.

It says archiveofour.net

When you go to it, it looks EXACTLY like Ao3, but it is NOT.

When I curiously tapped the search bar, a pop-up opened to direct me elsewhere. I believe this to be a spoof site for the purpose of either phishing or possibly hijacking PCs for mining bitcoin or some other malicious purpose.

I could be wrong. Perhaps it's a proxy site- but the fact that it redirected me to yet another suspicious-looking URL is alarming.

I let a few friends know, but it doesn't appear on every browser. @plague-of-insomnia mentioned using CC and Safari, and it didn't appear for them.

Ya'll be careful, and remember to always check the URL! At first glance, this spoof site is very convincing. If I had been half asleep, I may not have noticed it was different.

Please reblog to make your friends and other fic writers and readers aware!

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

Tiger Lily

Originally drawn April 17th, 2022. Posted on Tik Tok April 23rd.

Reblogs welcome; reposts not!

[uneq-apol--reblogs]

already got a blazed marvel post. the adpocalypse is closer than we think so heres your daily PSA

don't interact with corporate tumblr accounts

yes even to dunk on them. i don't care if you have the sickest burn of the century lined up, don't even give them the time of day

the eventual and inevitable fall of twitter marks a change in the advertising industry, and tumblr is unclaimed territory. if we want tumblr to remain the social media bastion it has become, it needs to remain as unappealing to corporations as possible. do not engage. in a marketing strategist's eyes, any kind of attention is good attention. don't "silence, brand" them. don't kungpowpenis them. don't send them hate anons. don't hate-follow them. corporate tumblrs are not a single entity and they will not be harassed off this site. we only have a shot at repelling them because of tumblr's lack of an algorithm. so turn off recommended posts on your dashboard, put it chronological order, and install an adblocker. if you don't seek out these blazed posts and actively ignore them when they happen upon you, the corporations will starve. in this case, the best kind of protest is a silent one

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Important - testosterone recall info

[ID: A tweet that reads "For my trans friends on testosterone, go check your lot number, there's been a recall due to bacterial contamination." The tweet includes a link to the news source detailing the recall and a screenshot from that source. The link to the news article is:

End ID]

Update: It looks like there may be some additional related recalls. You can check the FDA website. I just searched for Sun as the manufacturer with a timeframe of the last two months.

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to my fellow usamericans….in light of the supreme court overturning roe v wade, well known organizations like planned parenthood dont need your money right now - they have plenty - if you’re going to donate, donate to your local or state abortion funds

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Losing Miranda Rights protections wasn’t on my 2022 bingo card yet here we are….