I legitimately can’t imagine how awful it must be to be trans in Russia. Well, pretty much anywhere really, now that I think of it. Trans people just can’t catch a break. I feel so bad for them.

If you’re looking for news, follow some of the accounts here, and there’s a spreadsheet of journalists on mastodon here.

Don’t rely on trending hashtags, it’s not a useful feature on mastodon.

Doesn’t matter if you’re using an iPhone or android. They have your number, email, etc. (either given by you or by someone else when they uploaded their contacts to Facebook/instagram/whatsapp) and everything you do is tracked and logged.

That’s the thing about Meta. They gather info from literally billions of people, it doesn’t matter if you personally handed it over or not. Everyone who has your info — name, phone number, email, work number, etc. has probably already shared all or some of it with Meta. The moment you sign up and give them any info at all that matches your info in someone’s contacts, they’ll know it’s you.

If you don’t want them tracking you, your only option is to not use their services and block all their trackers. They’ll have your info anyway, but at least they won’t be able to track your activity.

Edit: a lot of people don’t grasp how bad the situation is with Meta. They trick people into uploading their contacts by requesting access to “help you find your friends” across their services, and they match that info and create a shadow profile for everyone. As soon as you sign up to any of their services, they’ll match that shadow profile to you. That’s why you immediately see people you know even though you just created an account. You’re in their contacts. Facebook has outed countless gay and trans people, as well as sex workers. They will also recommend your therapist’s clients to you as “people you may know” because you all have the therapist’s phone number.

It’s a nightmare. I’ve been trying to make people aware of it for like a decade or something like that. No one listens.

There aren’t nearly as many right wingers and fascists as social media makes you believe. Speaking as a Mastodon instance admin, every single time we’ve had huge waves of bot and/or troll signups they’ve been very clearly right wing accounts (almost all had similar bios) that almost immediately started interacting with and boosting each other as well as harassing trans and queer people.

The thing about the fediverse is that it can’t be manipulated the way centralized social media can. So what happens is that it gets handled very quickly. They get banned and their instances get defederated so all they can do is shout into the void. They’re not, nor have they ever been, the majority by any stretch of the imagination, and most people have absolutely no desire to hear what they have to say at all.

On top of that, a huge number of them are grifters, and they won’t get any engagement here. They can’t get the kind of viral outrage they need because most people aren’t even seeing their posts.

If they had just sherlocked xKit and left the site alone — not adding the live video shit, etc — most users wouldn’t care about the ads. I swear it’s like every social network is just copying each other, remember when everyone added stories because of Snapchat, and how everyone is adding TikTok style videos now? Tumblr’s biggest mistake was doing that, it should’ve just stayed as it was. People are on tumblr because they like tumblr. If they wanted TikTok, they’d download TikTok.

Tumblr was THE place to be for artists. Someone should make a federated alternative.

Problems you might face: nazis and QAnon. Solution: don’t federate with everything.

Frankly, I think they’re being laughably naive >.<

The creator of Mastodon went to some kind of Meta round table meeting (couldn’t find the original thread, here’s someone declining the offer), so it’s entirely possible that he was told a bunch of lies and believed them.

That said, Meta is going to pay the admins of whatever instances Threads decides to federate with, and they’ve said that’ll be the biggest instances, which… well, that’s mastodon.social, by far the biggest Mastodon instance. So, I don’t know. I don’t have any reason to believe that he’s a bad person, but what kind of money are we talking about here? No one is immune to that kind of temptation.

I dunno, this whole situation has a weird vibe.

This is hilarious tbh. Please don’t get me wrong, I really feel for the mods who put so much time and energy into the sub (all subs for that matter). It sucks.

But god, watching reddit implode feels so fucking good. Spez is an abrasive asshole and, it turns out, also a moron, and it’s nice to see his web site fall from grace so publicly.

I married my husband because I love him, not because I didn’t want to be lonely.

I’m American, but I’ve lived in several different countries pretty much my whole life.

Culturally, America is a little weird about keeping up appearances no matter the cost. That’s not exclusively an American thing, obviously, but in my experience, we’re the absolute worst at this. People will do absolutely, wildly insane and irresponsible shit to make sure they look like they have their shit together, including getting into debt. Again, I know this all happens overseas too, but everything is louder, flashier, bigger here, and so is this.

One of the biggest cultural problems that we have is the deeply ingrained idea that poverty is the result of poor choices, stupidity, etc. — and when I say “deeply ingrained”, I mean deeply ingrained. Most people don’t even realize that they feel that way, and even people who are poor through absolutely no fault of their own may believe deep down that it is their fault and they’re worthless or stupid etc. Once again, the idea that people are poor because they make bad choices is not uniquely American by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s orders of magnitude more deeply ingrained and pervasive here, so much so that just looking like you’re poor in can ruin your chances in life.

What does that have to do with teeth? Well, they’re an indicator of socioeconomic status here. I have a snaggle tooth that I’m only self-conscious about when I’m here. People notice, they will literally avert their eyes when they see it, and I instinctively hide it to the point of avoiding smiling altogether. When I’m in Japan, or Ireland (or really anywhere in Europe), not only do I not feel self-conscious at all, but it’s not hard to find other snaggle-toothed people, all smiling without a care in the world. As long as your teeth aren’t rotten or something, nobody seems to care.

Every time I’ve been to the dentist in the US, they’ve mentioned that tooth like it’s a problem that needs to be corrected, even though there’s nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it’s not straight like my other teeth. They offer braces, extractions, all kinds of shit. I keep my mouth very clean and I’ve never had a cavity in my life (I’m 42), I just have this one weird lil tooth.

When I go to the dentist overseas, they never really bring it up. They check my teeth for cavities etc. compliment my oral health, and send me on my way. The only time a non-American dentist brought it up was when he asked if it was hurting my upper lip or anything of that nature. No one outside the US ever treated it like it was a health issue that needed correction or offered me unsolicited advice for correcting it. (Disclaimer: a snaggle tooth CAN cause health problems if it makes it difficult to clean your mouth etc, but mine doesn’t — please don’t use my words as an excuse not to address issues that may be damaging your oral health).

TLDR: anything other than perfectly straight teeth makes Americans think you’re poor and being poor means you’re lazy/dumb/whatever therefore you must fix it regardless of cost. So it’s a huge industry here.

First of all I want to make it clear that I don’t agree with this defederation, if the models are verified adults then there is no problem.

That said, as a Mastodon instance admin, I wanna explain something to y’all. CSAM is one of those things that you do not want to take your chances with as an admin. Beyond the obvious fact that it’s vile, even having that shit cached on your server can potentially lead to very serious legal trouble. I can see how an admin might choose to defederate because even if right now all models are verified, what if something slips through the cracks (pun not intended, but I’ll roll with it).

My instance defederates a bunch of Japanese artist instances like pawoo because of this. All it takes is one user crossing the line, one AI generated image that looks too real.

Aside from all that, there’s also a lot of pressure being put on many instance admins to outright ban users and defederate instances that post or allow loli/shota artwork as well. You’re quickly labeled a pedophile if you don’t do it. A lot of people consider fake CSAM to be just as bad, so it’s possible that the other admin felt that way.

I’m more lenient on loli/shota as long as it’s not realistic because I understand that it’s a cultural difference and generally speaking Japanese people don’t see it the way we do. I don’t ban stuff just because I think it’s gross, I just don’t look at it.

Anyway what I’m trying to say I guess is that being an admin is hard and there’s a lot of stuff y’all don’t know about so disagree with that person if you want (I do too) but keep in mind that these decisions don’t come easy and nobody likes to defederate.

EDIT: here’s a mastodon thread about the CSAM problem in the fediverse if you’d like to learn more.

AI isn’t stealing jobs any more than cheap clip art has. The only people who would resort to AI for illustration stopped hiring actual artists ages ago, they buy from shutterstock and the like instead.

The reason artists are pissed id because they used our art to train the AI without our permission. And no, its not the same thing as an artist learning from others, first because of the scale, and second because a student who is learning from other artists isn’t looking to copy an existing style, they’re learning and developing their own. AI just regurgitates what it already knows and attempts to imitate the style of an actual person. It was developed specifically to do that.

If a human being copies the style of another artist rather than develop their own, they’ll be called out too. No one has ever been okay with that, ever.

I can’t imagine going through life thinking that everything I love and/or desire will send me to hell or whatever. Imagine living in fear because you think someone is watching and judging you. No thanks.

I don’t see any advantage to having any kind of religious faith. Seems like it just limits your options and gives you nothing in return.

Easiest way to find out: shit fuck bitch asshole

Can you read those or are they censored?

The average person just doesn’t care. If the app works and they can see memes and connect with their friends they’re happy with it. They don’t care about data collection or the fediverse or any of that stuff. And I’m not saying this to imply that they’re stupid or anything like that. Just different priorities. All this stuff just literally doesn’t matter to them.

UFOlogy is huge in Brazil. They have a lot of famous “incidents”, google Varginha alien and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m not a believer at all, I just happen to know about it cause I lived there for a while and one of my coworkers was a UFO nut.

Joke’s on them, nobody ever talks to me.

I’m gonna ignore the political stuff and actually answer your question: impersonation is a shit thing to do no matter who the target is, but there’s no centralized authority or terms of service in the fediverse. That’s kinda the whole point of it.

The above user is on mastodon, so they can verify their identity there by adding a line of code to their web site and then linking to their web site on masto. Instructions here: https://barrd.dev/article/add-a-verified-website-to-your-mastodon-account/

Once they’ve done that, they can pin a toot saying only to trust this account and no others.

If they don’t have a web site, welp. Never too late to make one.

What you're missing is the fact that it would be a huge risk and we have mouths to feed and bills to pay. Who’s to say the other people in the mutual aid group will stick around? Without a job I have no health insurance, what happens if I get cancer? Who pays for that? How do I know that I’ll be able to pay rent every month? With whose money? What happens if my dog needs surgery, who pays for that? Where do I get money for groceries?

Also as one of the working poor I have never relied on charity for anything because I live in a shit hole that doesn’t really even offer anything. Only churches do charity work here and my gay ass is not welcome there.

That’s not even taking into account the fact that you’d have to get people to agree to help each other. Do you think all the racist white assholes in my town will join up with black and Mexican families? lmao

I’ve been a mod for several different communities over the years, not just reddit-type forums but also IRC, discord, twitch etc. I’m now “retired” because I have too much going on irl and don’t have time, but anyway.

As someone who was a mod for literal decades: for me personally, it was always about love of whatever community or project I was volunteering at. Wanting it to be a safe, welcoming and pleasant environment for everyone, helping people when they had questions or problems, and so on.

To be brutally honest, yeah, it’s a thankless job. The average internet user really has no idea what mods deal with, especially if they’re working with larger/more popular communities. Over the years, I’ve dealt with a lot of harassment, stalking, death threats, even a smear campaign (well, there was an attempt, lmao). You’d be shocked how vicious people can become over the most trivial, unimportant shit — to give you an idea, someone once sent me a death threat because I told them to knock it off when they were spamming the same question on twitch chat. I’ve been doxxed for banning someone for posting content that was against the rules of a forum, and accused of being a shill for several different web sites. I was also told I was an “authoritarian” for enforcing rules such as “no self-promo” and “no affiliate links” etc., and I’ve been accused of “censorship” for banning Holocaust deniers and flat earthers.

That’s not to mention the really ugly shit. Someone photoshopped a picture of my dog to make it look like he was decapitated and sent it to me. I’ve been sent things I had to contact the authorities about, literally like, actually illegal, horrible stuff.

And the reason those things were sent to me was always something completely fucking unimportant, by any measure. Like just inane internet stuff. I’ve never been a moderator for any kind of “serious” community, never anything political or anything like that, just anime, video games, digital art, etc.

So why did I do it for so long, and plan to do it again when I have the time?

As someone who has struggled with loneliness due to an unfortunate combination of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and agoraphobia, I know better than most how vital online spaces can be. I know how important it is to have a place where one can talk to likeminded folks who share the same hobby, passions, and so on. I probably wouldn’t be alive right now if I hadn’t had access to those spaces, and I want to do my part not only to give back as a show of gratitude, but also to make sure that others like me have a place where they feel welcome, safe and seen (in a good way).

Being a mod was how I met just about every person in my life that isn’t family. My best friends were on the same mod team as me; my husband was a member of a community I moderated, as were many of my oldest and dearest friends. I don’t know what my life would’ve been like without the internet.

So, that’s why.

TLDR: the good outweighs the bad.

Way to anger the old gods

RIGHT? It’s fucking insane that no one seems to be talking about this. I’ve been trying for years and people just roll their eyes or ignore me. What the fuck.

And it’s completely because people don’t think about it and/or don’t understand how this stuff works. The app says “share your contacts to find your friends!” and people just go “cool ok”.

Here’s a not-cool story: Facebook showed my friend a photo of her rapist under “people you may know”. Fucking hell.

Because fuck tech CEOs that’s why.

It’s not so much that data is collected as it is how that data is used. Meta has a long, long history of doing extremly creepy shit with collected data — even from users who don’t have an account.

Google doesn’t do that, so people are a bit more forgiving of them. I personally dislike both equally, though.

Why does everything have to be for profit?

USA here. Only reason I have WhatsApp is to stay in touch with friends in Europe and South America. Not a single one of my American friends or relatives uses it.

Well yeah I’m not like defending them or anything. I just kind of understand where they’re coming from too.

Seems lemmy.ml censors slurs specifically then, since “bitch” is considered a gendered slur.

No one. I’m the famous hacker 4chan.

I will not risk voting third party when a Republican president will do everything in his power to take away my rights and the rights of my trans friends. It’s easy to do that when your rights aren’t on the line, but mine are.

Please note that I don’t disagree with you. I fucking hate democrats. It’s a garbage party full of garbage candidates with garbage ideas and garbage officials with no spine.

But these are my rights we’re talking about. This is my actual life. The rights of my friends and loved ones to exist. Right now, right here. I can’t risk that.

I also don’t really think it’s fair to both-sides this. I don’t disagree with you that democrats are awful (see above) but they’re orders of magnitude less awful than Republicans. At least they’re not trying to turn this country into a theocracy.

I’ll happily vote third party when my loved ones and I aren’t one election away from a fucking death camp.

Please do not spend three days without pooping

I mean you can just have your feed show only the stuff you’re subscribed to…

Existence is very scary. The randomness of it all, the indifference of the universe, how little we matter, the finality of death… not everyone can cope with this stuff. Religion provides hope and comfort to them.

I mean I wish we’d move past religion, but I don’t think it’ll ever happen. Being alive is fucking terrifying.

Apps just offer a better experience than a mobile browser, generally speaking (I’m sure there are exceptions though). Also, apps can send push notifications, and third party apps offer more customizations and better features than official apps (again I’m sure there are exceptions though).

Social media sites and their official apps, outside of the fediverse, are too cluttered and annoying. I still remember when Instagram forced video ads to autoplay. I deleted my account and never went back. I really don’t understand how people manage to use this stuff, it’s awful. Ads everywhere, non-chronological timelines, no customization options, tracking scripts/pixels, that slow everything down, it’s terrible.

It’s because of you have a green bubble, none of the iMessage features will work, so it’s better to use another, more feature rich platform to communicate.

I get that some teenagers or whatever make a big deal out of it but that’s all it is really. I have an iPhone and I use discord to talk to my friends who have Android phones. It’s never been a problem.

They don’t need to. They already know where you live, work, etc.

But they can’t see the info that’s stored in your phone, no.

I was on usenet in the 90s. It was WILD. I remember trying to explain it to my mom, and she just didn’t quite grasp it. When I told her I was talking to someone from Germany, she asked if she was gonna have to pay for that, because it was long distance. Bless her heart.

Waar kom jezelf vandaan? Hoeveel talen spreek je? Begrijpt je me? Se acha muito esperto, mas eu aposto que vc não tá entendendo uma palavra do que eu estou falando. Corre no Google Translate! lmao

I lived in The Netherlands because my father was transferred there when I was 17 and my whole family moved there. I lived in Brazil because my mother was Brazilian and I wanted to experience life there. As for Ireland, my boyfriend was from Galway and I lived with him for a few years before I came home and settled down.

You can go ahead and say I’m lying, but being an asshole on the internet isn’t gonna make your life any better. Maybe focus on personal growth instead of being rude to random people for no reason.

I lived in Europe for 12 years, and and in South America for 10. I was in Europe (mostly in the Netherlands and Ireland) from my late teens through my 20s and in Brazil from age 22 until age 32.

I was not “studying abroad for a semester” but go off I guess.

For real, I fucking love meat but I only eat it once a week now and it’s not like I’m fucking dying. And it’s not like what I’m eating now tastes bad or anything - lots of rice and beans (Brazilian style, fucking divine), potatoes and other veggies, sometimes a little tofu. It’s fine.

The world is literally dying and people are whining about hamburgers or whatever. Fucking insane man.