Reblog to send this pika to your followers.

Image of a pika with flowers and leaves in its mouth, walking towards the viewer.ALT

He leaving.

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Oh. He brought you more.

Image of a pika with grass in its mouth.ALT

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Everyone thinks Riza is this stone-cold killer when in reality she’s just incapable of of producing serotonin. Mood, girl.

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text posts, oops! all phantom thieves edition

also tumblr killed the quality on a lot of these i'm so sorry

Even if you’re paying for the product, you’re still the product

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There’s something oddly comforting about the idea that “if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product,” namely, the corollary: “If you can afford to pay for a product, you won’t be the product.” But it’s bullshit. Companies don’t make you the product because you don’t pay — they make you the product because you can’t stop them.

The theory behind “if you’re not paying for the product…” is that old economist’s saw: “incentives matter.” Companies that monetize attention are incentivized to manipulate and spy on you, while companies that you pay just want to make you happy.

This is a theory of corporate behavior grounded in economics, not power, a creature of theory and doctrine that never bothers to check in with the real world to see how that theory and doctrine map to actual events. Reality is a lot uglier.

Apple has blanketed the planet with billboards and print and online ads extolling its privacy-forward system design (e.g. “Privacy. That’s Iphone.”). There’s something to this: in 2020, the company made it very easy to opt out of third-party Ios surveillance, and 96% of its users opted out:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

That decision cost Facebook $10 billion in a single year, and the losses keep coming. Facebook launched a campaign that accused Apple of privacywashing an anticompetitive maneuver, claiming that Apple didn’t care about its users’ privacy, they just wanted to eliminate competition for Apple’s own ad brokerage:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/facebooks-laughable-campaign-against-apple-really-against-users-and-small

Facebook’s campaign poses itself as the true champion of its users, accusing Apple of shamming. It’s laughable. Facebook manifestly despises its users and proves that fact every day in a thousand ways, large and small. Facebook’s true objection to Apple’s privacy tools is that they reduced Facebook’s earnings by $10b. Obviously.

But that doesn’t mean that Facebook is wrong about Apple’s cynicism. Apple exercises enormous control over its users. It’s a direct control. Apple blocks you from installing software of your choosing or from using third-party repair services of your choosing. They pour millions into engineering to make this technically challenging, and lead a coalition of large corporations that kill right to repair legislation whenever it is mooted:

https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13

Some of Facebook’s critics accuse it of exercising similar control, but via a far more insidious method: they say that Facebook’s voracious surveillance of its users, combined with machine learning, allows Facebook to control its users’ minds, stripping them of their free will and turning them into algorithm-addled zombies who do whatever Facebook directs them to do.

This is an extraordinary claim, given that every previous claim of mind-control turned out to be bullshit, from Mesmer to MK Ultra. The best evidence for these mind-control claims comes from Facebook’s own marketing materials, where the company assures advertisers that they should spend their money on FB’s platform because of its mind-control features.

When FB critics repeat these claims, they’re engaged in “criti-hype,” Lee Vinsel’s useful coinage describing criticism that serves to bolster the target’s own propaganda. If FB are evil geniuses, well, at least they’re still geniuses.

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Some Facebookers doubtless believe their own hype, but that doesn’t mean we have to join them in self-delusion. We can criticize Facebook for seeking control over its users, and for using that control to do things that serve its own interests at the expense of its users’ interests.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

That’s the true sin of Big Tech: using deception and coercion to control users. Companies that gain this control can be reliably expected to use it in whichever ways they can get away with. They are paperclip-maximizing artificial life-forms bent on devouring the human race, not ethical actors.

Apple’s commitment to privacy is best understood as instrumental. Apple thinks that protecting your privacy will attract your business, and they’re right. I would like to have privacy! But while Apple can increase its revenues by telling you they’ll protect your privacy, they can increase them even more by lying about it.

That’s just what they do. Earlier this month, a small security research firm called Mysk released a video revealing that when you tick the box on your Iphone that promises “disable the sharing of Device Analytics altogether,” your Iphone continues to spy on you, and sends the data it collects to Apple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JxvH80Rrcw

The data Iphones gather is extraordinarily fine-grained: “what you tapped on, which apps you search for, what ads you saw, and how long you looked at a given app and how you found it.”

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-when-off-app-store-1849757558

It doesn’t stop there: “The app sent details about you and your device as well, including ID numbers, what kind of phone you’re using, your screen resolution, your keyboard languages, how you’re connected to the internet — notably, the kind of information commonly used for device fingerprinting.”

The researchers had to jailbreak an Iphone in order to find this lie. Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make jailbreaking illegal. Apple claims that allowing users to disable the locks on their phones will make them vulnerable to bad actors who will install deceptive, coercive software.

That is true, but it’s also true that these locks make it impossible to determine whether Apple’s software is deceptive and coercive. The walled fortress that keeps you safe from third parties is also a walled prison that leaves you at the mercy of the warlord who owns the fortress.

Once a company attains a certain scale, it becomes too big to jail, and then it monetizes you however it can. If you think the future of technology is battle is between Google’s approach and Apple’s, think again. The real fight is between the freedom to decide how technology works for you, and corporate control over technology.

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Apple and Google are like the pigs and the men at the end of Animal Farm: supposed bitter enemies who turn out to be indistinguishable from one another. Google also has “privacy” switches in its preference panels that do nothing:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog

Indeed, there are so many places in Google’s location privacy settings where you can tick a box that claims to turn off location spying. None of them work. A senior product manager at Google complained to her colleagues that she had turned off three different settings and was still being tracked:

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1398359580275523590

Apple is now the subject of a California class action suit over its deceptive practices, which violate the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/LibmanvAppleIncDocketNo522cv07069NDCalNov102022CourtDocket

As Gizmodo’s Thomas Germain notes, Apple has a good — if self-serving — reason to spy on its users. It has launched its own ad network, and is selling advertisers the ability to target its customers based on their activities:

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-privacy-analytics-class-action-suit-1849774313

Companies will only protect your privacy to the extent that it is more profitable than not doing so. They can increase those profits by advertising privacy promises to potential customers. They can increase them more by secretly breaking those promises, And they can increase them even more by using privacy claims to block their rivals’ spying, so they’re the sole supplier of your nonconsensually collected personal information.

That’s what’s happening with Google’s endless proposals to “increase privacy” in Chrome that block third parties from spying on users, while letting Google continue to invade our privacy:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea

If we want our privacy, we need both transparency (so third parties can investigate companies’ claims to protect privacy) and regulation (so cheating companies will face consequences when they’re caught by those third parties).

That’s why it’s so exciting that the FTC has announced its intention to treat privacy invasions as antitrust violations:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupling

For so long as corporations can use technology and law to hide their misdeeds and power to avoid consequences for those misdeeds, “voting with your wallet” is as useless as opting out of Ios tracking.

We had advertising-supported media for generations — centuries — without mass surveillance. The problem with advertising isn’t incentives — it’s impunity.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en


[Image ID: An Apple ‘Privacy. That’s iPhone.’ ad. The three rear-facing camera lenses have been replaced by the staring, red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.]

“This character is dead in canon” to you. They’re dead in canon to you. To me they’re fine

“This character is dead in canon” then explain to me why they’re still running around and living rent free in my head.

bc ghosts don’t pay rent

“This character is dead in canon” to you. They’re dead in canon to you. To me they’re fine

“This character is dead in canon” then explain to me why they’re still running around and living rent free in my head.

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existing is enough bud. you have already proven love is real by being here. GREAT JOB. everything else is extra credit

dj-nasir got the whole club complaining about his selection of metal

one thing you won't know until you experience it for yourself when you create art out of love is how it feels when people receive it with love. when you post a doodle and someone keeps it as their lockscreen, or when you write a story and someone tells you they were thinking about it all day, or when you post a poem and someone shares it with a touching caption. doesn't matter if it was objectively good or not. matters that someone spent time with it, that someone really, really liked it, and you made it. this kind of interaction, i think, it can really sustain you for weeks. it can sustain you through a lot of terrible things. its confirmation that you exist, and that (however briefly) your existence was appreciated by someone else through your art.

whenever a mutual likes one of my posts I wire them 5 mg of juice reward if they reblog it I wire them 10 mg

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I spent like a solid hour to find this post because I couldn't stop thinking about it

how the fuck did the fire nation beat fucking anyone their element can't do shit to any of the others

shoot fire at an airbender? they blow fire back in your face now you got burn face

a waterbender sends a wave at you and you defend with fire? congrats dipshit now you've turned that attack into steam in your eyes at best or boiling water on your skin at worst

you throw fire they throw rock you get hit with hot rock war over

Literally the only way the fire nation fought enemies was with slow technological veachiles (drills and air boats) and fucking AMBUSHING PEOPLE. AND IT WAS MAINLY AMBUSHING CIVILIANS (against the Geneva Convention). The fire nations army is full of war criminals

You think they have the Geneva Convention in ATLA? They don’t even have Geneva. 

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Casting Call!

The members of the Wittebane Collab are delighted to announce an open casting call for voice actors!

Who are we?
We are a team of over 50 artists, writers, voice actors, and musicians who are currently working to bring the Wittebane backstory to life in the form of a 20+ minute long video.

We have the following open roles:
- Caleb Wittebane - Kid ~10
- Caleb Wittebane - Teen ~15
- Caleb Wittebane - Adult
While advertised as three characters we are open to casting the same voice actor for both Caleb's Teenage and Adult characters.
-Three lower-pitched adult background characters (a scribe, a town governor, and a head witch hunter).

If you are interested in trying out, you may fill out an application here. You are also welcome to join the hype team to follow along with the project at our Discord server here.

As of May 15th, we are at least a month or two away from finalizing the cast. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us in the "ask us anything" channel on our server.

We are also searching for translators and closed caption writers to improve the project's accessibility. We currently have Danish, French, Galician, Romanian, and Spanish translators, and would love to add more languages. You can use the same application that we linked above to offer your translation and captioning services.

Good luck! We look forward to hearing your amazing voices!

-Birdie @ litfeathers

Learning to delete/mute/block before a negative comment takes root in your mind is a modern survival skill. If you're going to wander the overgrown countryside of the internet, you need to develop a quick eye for ticks.

It's deeply tempting to respond to the "well, actually," to the cruel assumption, to the unjust accusation, to the odious viewpoint. It's tempting because you're defaulting to the etiquette of dinner conversation. This isn't a dinner conversation. Someone is shouting at you from a moving car. Turn away.

This is an extremely good and helpful sentiment, and one I’ve subscribed to for a long time. Delete the message quickly and permanently. Last time I got a nasty anon ask I skimmed it, realized what it was, and deleted it. Did one or two phrases sit with me for a while? Sure, maybe 20, 30 minutes. I really wanted to respond. But if I had, that cannonball would still be hanging around my neck and present on my blog, and as it is I don’t remember what it was about or even those two phrases that I thought I would. 

I also am of the opinion that it INFURIATES the commenter/sender not to get a response, because why would they be a dickhead if they didn’t want a response, so the longer time passes without one, the healthier I am and the angrier and more anxious they are. It’s good for your mental health AND the healthiest form of vengeance! 

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A few times on Reddit I write a spicy response to someone then mute the thread and never think about it again. This way I don't have to let their spicier response get to me.

I don't care who they think 'won' the argument, I disengaged and therefore I won for myself. Because I recognized that I needed to step away from the situation for my own mental health.

this anime’s refusal to engage with the technicalities of its own premise is SO inspiring. we don’t have time to focus on whatever plot hole physics we used to get here, we have an undead pop band to run

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