#Free Social Media Content Generator Tool

[theaicreators]

 Free Social Media Content Generator Tool

TheAICreators is a free social media content generator tool that uses AI technology to generate high-quality content for social media platforms. The tool can generate content in a variety of formats such as photos, videos, and text, and can be used to create engaging content quickly and easily. TheAICreators is a great tool for businesses and individuals looking to create captivating content for their social media accounts.

[pintadorartist]

Musk and House Republicans are still pushing KOSA

The bill is still being pushed at the end of the year. We need to keep up the pressure to stop KOSA from passing.

This is more pressing with FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson (whose agenda has been revealed to be very transphobic) being selected as Trump's nominee for Chairman of the FTC. If KOSA passes, this will give him and the Trump administration the power to attack online platforms that "harm children," making it harder to share progressive content and organize online.

So this week, keep making calls, emailing, and faxing your Representatives and these House leaders as well.

In addition to your House reps, call the House Leaders, especially the Republican leaders since they’re majority leaders:

Republican:

⭐Steve Scalise

        (202) 225-3015

Fax 202-226-0386

⭐Mike Johnson

        (202) 225-2777

fax: (202) 225-8039

Democrat:

⭐Hakeem Jeffries

            (202) 225-5936

Ayanna Pressley

(202) 225-5111

Ilhan Omar

(202) 225-4755

Jamaal Bowman

(202) 225-2464

Cori Bush 

(202) 225-2406

Call tools:

FFTF:

Fax:

Find your rep:

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third-party companies, which would put them in further danger. This also exposes everyone else. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

——————————————————————————

Make sure to share this around to get more people involved.

I also ask that if you have an account with these other sites, you share and upvote these posts(they're different posts):

-Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fight For The Future (@fightfortheftr)

-Bsky:

-Twitter:

-Tiktok: (i dont have tiktok so i cant link a kosa video here, my bad)

-Tumblr:

[artdotpage]

Problems facing modern artists & creators

I've talked with hundreds of artists and creators about the difficulties they face trying to earn a living from their craft.

This post covers two of the big ones (social media algorithms & bargain basement marketplaces), and what tools are available to grow your business despite these issues.

Social Media Algorithms and Audience Ownership

Social media platforms are a godsend for getting your work in front of potential clients and building a loyal fan base.

However as you will all have experienced, it can take a mastermind to figure out what kind of content the algorithm wants you to post, and if you don't do that you'd be as well throwing your content into the void as even your own followers might not see your post, never mind new viewers.

It also means you don't truly own your audience, if you post something slightly controversial your account could be deleted without warning, or perhaps a billionaire buys the site and everyone flocks to a new platform where you have to start growing your following all over again.

Solution: Build a mailing list

This is perhaps the single best marketing tool available to any business, and is sorely overlooked by artists and creators.

It's cost effective and because you own your mailing list it doesn't matter what's happening on social sites, you can always keep in touch with them.

The tricky part is converting people into mailing list subscribers. However I've seen plenty of creators successfully build one by offering incentives including free digital downloads, early access to content, discounts on your store etc.

Those who sign up to your mailing list would be considered high quality followers, someone who is much more likely to convert to a paid client and buy from you again in the future compared to the average follower on social media.

Tools

https://art.page/

https://substack.com/

https://convertkit.com/

Losing clients to undercutting competitors on the same platform/marketplace

If you run your business on a marketplace or platform, your clients are one click away from finding plenty of other choices who are willing to undercut everyone else to land a sale.

These sites have no incentive to make sure that traffic you drive to your profile actually purchase from you. Whether a sale is made through your listing or another seller, they collect their fee either way.

They also use uniform designs which reduce you to a generic product listing. Whilst this can simplify the customer experience, it means you have no control over the sales funnel and ability to differentiate yourself, making it harder to convert potential clients into paying customers.

Solution: Direct clients to your own site

Use your own personal website to make sales from, there are plenty of options with no monthly charge and lower fees than marketplaces. This lets you make dedicated marketing pages showcasing your best work to make a client excited about doing business with you, instead of just being a generic product listing.

Take advantage of marketplaces purely for their customer base. Don't rely on them as your sole business platform. This way, any fees you pay are worthwhile to generate sales you wouldn't have had otherwise. 

Tools

https://art.page/

https://www.bigcartel.com/

https://squareup.com/

Interested in more?

There's plenty more I have to share on this topic, including:

How to properly use Print on Demand without getting ripped off

Streamline managing your business so you spend more time creating and growing your business.

How to better utilize your brand to connect with clients and increase sales

So let me know if you’re interested and I’ll get writing!

Transparency

I'm building https://art.page to solve these exact issues, with the goal to create the best all in one site builder for artists and creators that makes running your business easy.

[gatheredfates]

Hi! My name is Sea, and I like to collect things. 🌿

Specifically, as of February this year, I have made it my mission to collect as many resources for the Final Fantasy community as I can; including, but not limited to: Communities, Events, Free Companies, How-To Guides, Lore, Tools and more! I have compiled them into Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives, a venture I hope will service as a directory for new and old FFXIV players alike to find places and things they might not otherwise know about, and I'm proud to say that the Compendium has over a hundred individual entries!

...But I want more.

Specifically, as much as this is a call to introduce new people to the Compendium, it is a call for anyone who might know of specific resources/communities that not in the document to take a moment's time out of their day to let me know about them. You can submit specific resources via:

My tumblr dm's.

This handy google form.

Or SEAFLOOR, my support and social community for the Compendium and adjacent projects.

You do not need to be a resource/server owner to submit; there just needs to be a publicly accessible link. ✨

Projects like mine equally cannot survive without the support of the community. If you like what I do, please reblog this post or share it with your friends; post it in your community servers or link it on your social media(s). The more visibility I get, the larger the Compendium becomes and the more likely you are to find a resource or community to suit your needs.

Okay, but really, Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document.

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs or other ventures used to generate roleplay.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[smellslikebot]

"how do I keep my art from being scraped for AI from now on?"

if you post images online, there's no 100% guaranteed way to prevent this, and you can probably assume that there's no need to remove/edit existing content. you might contest this as a matter of data privacy and workers' rights, but you might also be looking for smaller, more immediate actions to take.

...so I made this list! I can't vouch for the effectiveness of all of these, but I wanted to compile as many options as possible so you can decide what's best for you.

Discouraging data scraping and "opting out"

robots.txt - This is a file placed in a website's home directory to "ask" web crawlers not to access certain parts of a site. If you have your own website, you can edit this yourself, or you can check which crawlers a site disallows by adding /robots.txt at the end of the URL. This article has instructions for blocking some bots that scrape data for AI.

HTML metadata - DeviantArt (i know) has proposed the "noai" and "noimageai" meta tags for opting images out of machine learning datasets, while Mojeek proposed "noml". To use all three, you'd put the following in your webpages' headers:

<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai, noml">

Have I Been Trained? - A tool by Spawning to search for images in the LAION-5B and LAION-400M datasets and opt your images and web domain out of future model training. Spawning claims that Stability AI and Hugging Face have agreed to respect these opt-outs. Try searching for usernames!

Kudurru - A tool by Spawning (currently a Wordpress plugin) in closed beta that purportedly blocks/redirects AI scrapers from your website. I don't know much about how this one works.

ai.txt - Similar to robots.txt. A new type of permissions file for AI training proposed by Spawning.

ArtShield Watermarker - Web-based tool to add Stable Diffusion's "invisible watermark" to images, which may cause an image to be recognized as AI-generated and excluded from data scraping and/or model training. Source available on GitHub. Doesn't seem to have updated/posted on social media since last year.

Image processing... things

these are popular now, but there seems to be some confusion regarding the goal of these tools; these aren't meant to "kill" AI art, and they won't affect existing models. they won't magically guarantee full protection, so you probably shouldn't loudly announce that you're using them to try to bait AI users into responding

Glaze - UChicago's tool to add "adversarial noise" to art to disrupt style mimicry. Devs recommend glazing pictures last. Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

WebGlaze - Free browser-based Glaze service for those who can't run Glaze locally. Request an invite by following their instructions.

Mist - Another adversarial noise tool, by Psyker Group. Runs on Windows and Linux (Nvidia GPU required) or on web with a Google Colab Notebook.

Nightshade - UChicago's tool to distort AI's recognition of features and "poison" datasets, with the goal of making it inconvenient to use images scraped without consent. The guide recommends that you do not disclose whether your art is nightshaded. Nightshade chooses a tag that's relevant to your image. You should use this word in the image's caption/alt text when you post the image online. This means the alt text will accurately describe what's in the image-- there is no reason to ever write false/mismatched alt text!!! Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

Sanative AI - Web-based "anti-AI watermark"-- maybe comparable to Glaze and Mist. I can't find much about this one except that they won a "Responsible AI Challenge" hosted by Mozilla last year.

Just Add A Regular Watermark - It doesn't take a lot of processing power to add a watermark, so why not? Try adding complexities like warping, changes in color/opacity, and blurring to make it more annoying for an AI (or human) to remove. You could even try testing your watermark against an AI watermark remover. (the privacy policy claims that they don't keep or otherwise use your images, but use your own judgment)

given that energy consumption was the focus of some AI art criticism, I'm not sure if the benefits of these GPU-intensive tools outweigh the cost, and I'd like to know more about that. in any case, I thought that people writing alt text/image descriptions more often would've been a neat side effect of Nightshade being used, so I hope to see more of that in the future, at least!

[furufuro]

Hi everyone! 👋🏿 I hope to connect more this summer now that I have some free time. I apologize for being MIA.

I haven't been inactive for lack of content—quite the opposite. Creating in-game content, photo-shoots, and editing with tools like GIMP are time-consuming, and I've been learning from the ground up. Balancing this with working on the project, my job, and my goal of getting into a medical program has been challenging.

I'll admit, I'm not the most active on social media in general, but I truly value being part of the Sims community. Your feedback and support means a lot, and I want to do my part in sharing with you all.

For those who've stuck around, thank you for your patience and perseverance. I understand it hasn't been easy. Please know, I'm still dedicated to this project and committed to keeping you updated. While consistency might be tough come fall, this summer I'm making it a priority to post more.

Nasame, thanks again for your support and understanding.🌟

[the-night-that-feeds-if]

Hey everyone, dunno how long this might be, kind of doing a stream of consciousness style ramble about TNTF and me and stuff :)

alright so, tntf is getting a huge rework, this is my first if game ever, the coding is a little overwhelming, i know it’s fairly simple but it’s A LOT.

the reason i’ve been pretty quiet is mostly due to burnout, as some of you know i have health issues, i have crohns disease, i’m also autistic with adhd—something i love about this community is the understanding and acceptance for people/authors like me who may want to write but are just too stuck to be able to do it.

i know everyone is so jazzed for the next update, and i am too, there’s a few changes i’m making in regards to the technical aspects of the story, i’m removing stats, for the MC and for relationships. part of it is… i’m not a numbers person, trying to balance out the stats going up and down is a pain when this is planned to be a pretty damn long story. i also just don’t like it for my story personally, i don’t want you, as the player to feel like you have to game-ify personality or relationships.

this also opens the option for me to write more player responses to situations without having all of that annoying code in my brain~ MORE FLAVOR!

My writing has also vastly improved when it comes to fiction, a lot because i have been practicing so much while i’ve been sick (i’ve been playing with and writing AI chatbots on Janitor.AI, learning how to create a complex and realistic personality, an engaging character and world.) It’s been useful as a stress reliever and as a tool to help me write better, more descriptive etc.

on that note, smut in my game is also a very yes, i feel much more comfortable writing it now… heh.

i’ve also decided that all of my books are going to remain free, tntf was a planned three book series, it may just be one or two HUGE books, we’re going to have to see what i, and twine are capable of. but the story is going to span four countries and two continents of the world, so yeah.

the new rewrite is also going to slow things down considerably, because now we’ll have MC on a ship for four months as the intro, then meeting maddock and spending <insert amount of time here> with him while traveling to that little inn. it also gives me more room to introduce the characters a lot earlier but in their own POVs and not just while they’re with MC. i want the world to feel alive.

my decision to make and keep tntf free is because i want to.

i would not appreciate minors interacting with my content, but i also grew up with the internet, i know that no matter how much prevention we put in, minors are going to access our content regardless if it’s free or not. i just ask that if you are a minor and reading adult fiction, please don’t comment, dm or whatever, this is for your safety in the community as well as, i don’t want to deal with other people’s children on the internet, it’s nothing against any of ya’ll, you’re awesome, children are great but i’m almost 26, i really don’t want to deal with kids in what’s pretty much an adult space (i haven’t really seen books catered to the younger than 18 crowd, but like i’m saying, i’m more interested in forging connections with the adult community here, considering i am one, lmao *bats children away with pool noodles*)

i think that’s it

i might post more stuff but that’s my general direction

also to the asks in my inbox from last year on my birthday and forward… I READ THEM ALL AND APPRECIATE EVERY WELL WISH AND FEEDBACK, GENUINELY. i’m just bad at social media.

[sempermoi]

Rant about generative AI in education and in general under the cut because I'm worried and frustrated and I needed to write it out in a small essay:

So, context: I am a teacher in Belgium, Flanders. I am now teaching English (as a second language), but have also taught history and Dutch (as a native language). All in secondary education, ages 12-16.

More and more I see educational experts endorse ai being used in education and of course the most used tools are the free, generative ones. Today, one of the colleagues responsible for the IT of my school went to an educational lecture where they once again vouched for the use of ai.

Now their keyword is that it should always be used in a responsible manner, but the issue is... can it be?

1. Environmentally speaking, ai has been a nightmare. Not only does it have an alarming impact on emission levels, but also on the toxic waste that's left behind. Not to mention the scarcity of GPUs caused by the surge of ai in the past few years. Even sources that would vouch for ai have raised concerns about the impact it has on our collective health. sources: here, here and here

2. Then there's the issue with what the tools are trained on and this in multiple ways:

Many of the free tools that the public uses is trained on content available across the internet. However, it is at this point common knowledge (I'd hope) that most creators of the original content (writers, artists, other creative content creators, researchers, etc.) were never asked for permission and so it has all been stolen. Many social media platforms will often allow ai training on them without explicitly telling the user-base or will push it as the default setting and make it difficult for their user-base to opt out. Deviantart, for example, lost much of its reputation when it implemented such a policy. It had to backtrack in 2022 afterwards because of the overwhelming backlash. The problem is then that since the content has been ripped from their context and no longer made by a human, many governments therefore can no longer see it as copyrighted. Which, yes, luckily also means that ai users are legally often not allowed to pass off ai as 'their own creation'. Sources: here, here

Then there's the working of generative ai in general. As said before, it simply rips words or image parts from their original, nuanced context and then mesh it together without the user being able to accurately trace back where the info is coming from. A tool like ChatGPT is not a search engine, yet many people use it that way without realising it is not the same thing at all. More on the working of generative ai in detail. Because of how it works, it means there is always a chance for things to be biased and/or inaccurate. If a tool has been trained on social media sources (which ChatGPT for example is) then its responses can easily be skewed to the demographic it's been observing. Bias is an issue is most sources when doing research, but if you have the original source you also have the context of the source. Ai makes it that the original context is no longer clear to the user and so bias can be overlooked and go unnoticed much easier. Source: here

3. Something my colleague mentioned they said in the lecture is that ai tools can be used to help the learning of the students.

Let me start off by saying that I can understand why there is an appeal to ai when you do not know much about the issues I have already mentioned. I am very aware it is probably too late to fully stop the wave of ai tools being published.

There are certain uses to types of ai that can indeed help with accessibility. Such as text-to-voice or the other way around for people with disabilities (let's hope the voice was ethically begotten).

But many of the other uses mentioned in the lecture I have concerns with. They are to do with recognising learning, studying and wellbeing patterns of students. Not only do I not think it is really possible to data-fy the complexity of each and every single student you would have as they are still actively developing as a young person, this also poses privacy risks in case the data is ever compromised. Not to mention that ai is often still faulty and, as it is not a person, will often still make mistakes when faced with how unpredictable a human brain can be. We do not all follow predictable patterns.

The lecture stated that ai tools could help with neurodivergency 'issues'. Obviously I do not speak for others and this next part is purely personal opinion, but I do think it important to nuance this: as someone with auDHD, no ai-tool has been able to help me with my executive dysfunction in the long-term. At first, there is the novelty of the app or tool and I am very motivated. They are often in the form of over-elaborate to-do lists with scheduled alarms. And then the issue arises: the ai tries to train itself on my presented routine... except I don't have one. There is no routine to train itself on, because that is my very problem I am struggling with. Very quickly it always becomes clear that the ai doesn't understand this the way a human mind would. A professionally trained in psychology/therapy human mind. And all I was ever left with was the feeling of even more frustration.

In my opinion, what would help way more than any ai tool would be the funding of mental health care and making it that going to a therapist or psychiatrist or coach is covered by health care the way I only have to pay 5 euros to my doctor while my health care provider pays the rest. (In Belgium) This would make mental health care much more accessible and would have a greater impact than faulty ai tools.

4. It was also said that ai could help students with creative assignments and preparing for spoken interactions both in their native language as well as in the learning of a new one.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Creativity in its essence is about the person creating something from their own mind and putting the effort in to translate those ideas into their medium of choice. Stick figures on lined course paper are more creative than letting a tool like Midjourney generate an image based on stolen content. How are we teaching students to be creative when we allow them to not put a thought in what they want to say and let an ai do it for them?

And since many of these tools are also faulty and biased in their content, how could they accurately replace conversations with real people? Ai cannot fully understand the complexities of language and all the nuances of the contexts around it. Body language, word choice, tone, volume, regional differences, etc.

And as a language teacher, I can truly say there is nothing more frustrating than wanting to assess the writing level of my students, giving them a writing assignment where they need to express their opinion and write it in two tiny paragraphs... and getting an ai response back. Before anyone comes to me saying that my students may simply be very good at English. Indeed, but my current students are not. They are precious, but their English skills are very flawed. It is very easy to see when they wrote it or ChatGPT. It is not only frustrating to not being able to trust part of your students' honesty and knowing they learned nothing from the assignment cause you can't give any feedback; it is almost offensive that they think I wouldn't notice it.

5. Apparently, it was mentioned in the lecture that in schools where ai is banned currently, students are fearful that their jobs would be taken away by ai and that in schools where ai was allowed that students had much more positive interactions with technology.

First off, I was not able to see the source and data that this statement was based on. However, I personally cannot shake the feeling there's a data bias in there. Of course students will feel more positively towards ai if they're not told about all the concerns around it.

Secondly, the fact that in the lecture it was (reportedly) framed that being scared your job would disappear because of ai, was untrue is... infuriating. Because it already is becoming a reality. Let's not forget what partially caused the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. Corporations see an easy (read: cheap) way to get marketable content by using ai at the cost of the creative professionals. Unregulated ai use by businesses causing the loss of jobs for real-life humans, is very much a threat. Dismissing this is basically lying to young students.

6. My conclusion:

I am frustrated. It's clamoured that we, as teachers, should educate more about ai and it's responsible use. However, at the same time the many concerns and issues around most of the accessible ai tools are swept under the rug and not actively talked about.

I find the constant surging rise of generative ai everywhere very concerning and I can only hope that more people will start seeing it too.

Thank you for reading.

[my-deer-friend]

I have a stupid question. How do you find out about current history scholarship and research? I am sick of reading books I've read a hundred times and were published decades ago. Is there like a forum or something where historians share research or lectures or things?

Not stupid at all!

The key is 1) knowing which sources provide the most up-to-date information, and then 2) using the appropriate strategy to access them.

Conference and lectures

Conferences are where you find the most cutting-edge research – usually work that has not been published yet, or is still in progress. Accessing conferences can be both expensive and difficult (if they're limited to people with certain affiliations, for example), but there are also conferences that are free for the public, and ones run by groups like the Organization of American Historians that are reasonably priced for the digital attendance option. You can browse conference programmes (here is the OAH's 2024 version) to at least find the names of academics relevant to your field of interest, which will help with the kinds of searches you will want to conduct below.

Finding these is a mix of luck and effort. You can set a search alerts on various platforms, literally just do a search for "[topic] academic conference", find relevant organisations and subscribe to their newsletters for updates, or do some browsing on social media. I found History Symposium (free, current, deep-dive history lectures and a virtual conference) because of something shared here on Tumblr. Following the Instagram account of the Powder House in Charleston keeps me updated on their history lecture programming (which host virtual talks including showcasing new research on the US colonial era). Then there are institutions like the Royal Museums Greenwich who publish a range of high-quality historical content on their YouTube account (they have a good series on black history and the Transatlantic slave trade, as well as a fascinating recent lecture by a historian on the queer history of the British navy, which I also found here on Tumblr).

Academic journals

Journals are where you get the most recent published academic scholarship. A journal article generally is a fairly narrow/focused exploration of a topic that adds something new to the ongoing academic conversation (e.g., a new discovery, a new analysis of existing material, a new theoretical perspective, a challenge to a previous author's work).

Other useful kinds of journal content are book reviews, as well as "review" articles, which summarise and synthesise recent research in a field – as well as newly arising questions and research directions.

Getting your hands on articles requires two steps: 1) finding the research, and 2) accessing the research.

Finding articles

For better or worse, the best generalist search tool for journal articles is Google Scholar – it allows you to search across hundreds of databases and independent publishers for relevant content.

If you're a member of a university library (not necessarily staff or student – check if your library allows external membership), it will have its own search tool which allows you to find material in the databases and journals that the university is subscribed to. Individual databases, archives or publishers (think JSTOR) will also have their own internal search.

My advice is to start your search as narrowly as possible, and then expand out slowly if you don't find anything relevant. So, for example, I might start my search with "same-sex relationships london 1780s", and if nothing comes up, I might broaden it out to "england" or "late eighteenth century", and so on.

The other thing to do is follow citations (i.e., who referenced what?). You can travel "backwards" through the literature by looking at the reference lists of books or articles you already have (in other words, which works the author used to base their research on).

But you can also travel forwards – the "cited by x" link below a reference on Google Scholar is your friend, because it shows you who used that particular source in their (by default, more recent) work.

Accessing articles

Unfortunately, a lot of academic research is gatekept by the academic publishing industrial complex – not by academics themselves, to be clear. This results in those ludicrous charges for single papers:

(And $30 is hardly the upper limit...)

But hope is not lost! You still have some options if you're willing to do a bit of work.

1) Sometimes, if you're lucky, the article will be freely available online. In Google Scholar, for example, check for the "PDF" or "HTML" link to the right of the title:

Some entire journals are freely available (usually called "open access") – one example is the Journal of the American Revolution. You can also search on DOAJ for open-access-only articles and journals.

2) I've also occasionally found the article just by googling "[article name] pdf". Some scholars will make these available for free on their personal websites, for example.

3) You can also try contacting the scholar directly through a platform like Academia.edu. Find the article there, and check if there is a "request full-text" option on its page (or, even, if the full text version has already been posted).

4) For slightly older articles, try searching on JSTOR, which gives anyone with an account free access to 100 articles a month. (I say "older", but there's even scholarship from 2024 on there these days.)

5) If all else fails, definitely do not type "sci hub" into your search engine and check there. That would be bad and naughty and very, very sexy of you. I repeat, do not do this. 🤫

Academic books

Books are not usually a great source of super-current research, both because the format doesn't lend itself to it and the publishing cycle can be very long, but they can be an excellent source for a decently recent and detailed overview of the topic. Note that you specifically want academic books here (not the ones in the "history" section of your local chain bookstore).

If you've done some digging in journal databases, you should have a good sense of which authors are writing about the topics you're interested in. Find their websites or social media feeds and subscribe to get updates on their latest work. For example, historian and Tumblr darling Joanne Freeman has a website with links to her books, lectures and podcast, as well as other media. The Museum of the American Revolution has a "Read the Revolution" speaker series featuring newly published books on relevant topics (and they're certainly not the only museum or public institution to do this). Their newsletter will keep you updated on the upcoming sessions, and the website often has a free recording of the talk available.

The prices can be quite extortionate, so again, see if you can find a free version online using the methods above. You might also have some luck finding the book on Archive.org (which might allow you to loan it out for free for an hour at a time) or Google Books (which sometimes shows you a decently large preview). Definitely do not type "libgen" into your search engine and try to download the book form there.

In summary...

There's a lot out there. A bit of persistence and a lot of searching (on databases, social media and the internet in general) will open up a huge spectrum of intereting and relevant resources!

[qweerhet]

I see some of your pro-ai stuff, and I also see that you're very good at explaining things, so I have some concerns about ai that I'd like for you to explain if it's okay.

I'm very worried about the amount of pollution it takes to make an ai generated image, story, video, etc. I'm also very worried about ai imagery being used to spread disinformation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to go by the stance that since we can't un-create ai, we should just try our best to manage. How do we manage things like disinformation and massive amounts of pollution? To be fair, I actually don't know the exact amount of pollution ai generated prompts make.

so, first off: the environmental devastation argument is so incorrect, i would honestly consider it intellectually dishonest. here is a good, thorough writeup of the issue.

the tl;dr is that trying to discuss the "environmental cost of AI" as one monolithic thing is incoherent; AI is an umbrella term that refers to a wide breadth of both machine-learning research and, like, random tech that gets swept up in the umbrella as a marketing gimmick. when most people doompost about the environmental cost of AI, they're discussing image generation programs and chat interfaces in particular, and the fact is that running these programs on your computer eats about as much energy as, like, playing an hour of skyrim. bluntly, i consider this argument intellectually dishonest from anyone who does not consider it equally unethical to play skyrim.

the vast majority of the environmental cost of AI such as image generation and chat interfaces comes from implementation by large corporations. this problem isn't tractable by banning the tool; it's a structural problem baked into the existence of massive corporations and the current phase of capitalism we're in. prior to generative AI becoming a worldwide cultural trend, corporations were still responsible for that much environmental devastation, primarily to the end of serving ads--and like. the vast majority of use cases corporations are twisting AI to fit boil down to serving ads. essentially, i think focusing on the tool in this particular case is missing the forest for the trees; as long as you're not addressing the structural incentives for corporations to blindly and mindlessly participate in unsustainable extractivism, they will continue to use any and all tools to participate in such, and i am equally concerned about the energy spent barraging me with literally dozens and dozens of digital animated billboards in a ten-mile radius as i am with the energy spent getting a chatbot to talk up their product to me.

moving onto the disinformation issue: actually, yes, i'm very concerned about that. i don't have any personal opinions on how to manage it, but it's a very strong concern of mine. lowering the skill floor for production of media does, necessarily, mean a lot of bad actors are now capable of producing a much larger glut of malicious content, much faster.

i do think that, historically speaking, similar explosions of disinformation & malicious media haven't been socially managed by banning the tool nor by shaming those who use it for non-malicious purposes--like, when it was adopted for personal use, the internet itself created a sudden huge explosion of spam and disinformation as never before seen in human history, but "get rid of the internet" was never a tractable solution to this, and "shame people you see using the internet" just didn't do anything for the problem.

wish i could be more helpful on solutions for that one--it's just not a field i have any particular knowledge in, but if there's anyone reading who'd like to add on with information about large-scale regulation of the sort of broad field of malicious content i'm discussing, feel free.

[reasonsforhope]

"Major technology companies signed a pact on Friday to voluntarily adopt "reasonable precautions" to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world.

Executives from Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and TikTok gathered at the Munich Security Conference to announce a new framework for how they respond to AI-generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters. 

Twelve other companies - including Elon Musk's X - are also signing on to the accord...

The accord is largely symbolic, but targets increasingly realistic AI-generated images, audio, and video "that deceptively fake or alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials, and other key stakeholders in a democratic election, or that provide false information to voters about when, where, and how they can lawfully vote".

The companies aren't committing to ban or remove deepfakes. Instead, the accord outlines methods they will use to try to detect and label deceptive AI content when it is created or distributed on their platforms. 

It notes the companies will share best practices and provide "swift and proportionate responses" when that content starts to spread.

Lack of binding requirements

The vagueness of the commitments and lack of any binding requirements likely helped win over a diverse swath of companies, but disappointed advocates were looking for stronger assurances.

"The language isn't quite as strong as one might have expected," said Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

"I think we should give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge that the companies do have a vested interest in their tools not being used to undermine free and fair elections. That said, it is voluntary, and we'll be keeping an eye on whether they follow through." ...

Several political leaders from Europe and the US also joined Friday’s announcement. European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said while such an agreement can’t be comprehensive, "it contains very impactful and positive elements".  ...

[The Accord and Where We're At]

The accord calls on platforms to "pay attention to context and in particular to safeguarding educational, documentary, artistic, satirical, and political expression".

It said the companies will focus on transparency to users about their policies and work to educate the public about how they can avoid falling for AI fakes.

Most companies have previously said they’re putting safeguards on their own generative AI tools that can manipulate images and sound, while also working to identify and label AI-generated content so that social media users know if what they’re seeing is real. But most of those proposed solutions haven't yet rolled out and the companies have faced pressure to do more.

That pressure is heightened in the US, where Congress has yet to pass laws regulating AI in politics, leaving companies to largely govern themselves.

The Federal Communications Commission recently confirmed AI-generated audio clips in robocalls are against the law [in the US], but that doesn't cover audio deepfakes when they circulate on social media or in campaign advertisements.

Many social media companies already have policies in place to deter deceptive posts about electoral processes - AI-generated or not... 

[Signatories Include]

In addition to the companies that helped broker Friday's agreement, other signatories include chatbot developers Anthropic and Inflection AI; voice-clone startup ElevenLabs; chip designer Arm Holdings; security companies McAfee and TrendMicro; and Stability AI, known for making the image-generator Stable Diffusion.

Notably absent is another popular AI image-generator, Midjourney. The San Francisco-based startup didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The inclusion of X - not mentioned in an earlier announcement about the pending accord - was one of the surprises of Friday's agreement."

-via EuroNews, February 17, 2024

--

Note: No idea whether this will actually do much of anything (would love to hear from people with experience in this area on significant this is), but I'll definitely take it. Some of these companies may even mean it! (X/Twitter almost definitely doesn't, though).

Still, like I said, I'll take it. Any significant move toward tech companies self-regulating AI is a good sign, as far as I'm concerned, especially a large-scale and international effort. Even if it's a "mostly symbolic" accord, the scale and prominence of this accord is encouraging, and it sets a precedent for further regulation to build on.

[pintadorartist]

Musk and Republicans are still pushing KOSA in the SENATE as well

The bill is still being pushed at the end of the year for both chambers of Congress, either as part of an end-of-the-year spending bill or on its own. We need to keep up the pressure to stop KOSA from passing.

This is more pressing with FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson (whose agenda has been revealed to be very transphobic) being selected as Trump's nominee for Chairman of the FTC. If KOSA passes, this will give him and the Trump administration the power to attack online platforms that "harm children," making it harder to share progressive content and organize online.

So this week, keep making calls, emailing, and faxing your Senators and these Senate leaders as well.

In addition to your senators, call the Democrat and Republican Senate Leaders:

Republican Senate Leaders:

Mitch McConnell:

Phone: (202) 224-2541 Fax: (202) 224-2499

John Thune:

Phone: (202) 224-2321

Fax: (202) 228-5429

John Barrasso:

Main: 202-224-6441 Fax: 202-224-1724

Joni Ernst:

PHONE: (319) 365-4504

FAX: (319) 365-4683

Shelley Capito:

Phone: 202-224-6472

Steve Daines:

p: (202) 224-2651 f: 202-228-1236

Democrat Senate Leaders:

Chuck Schumer:

Phone: (202) 224-6542

Fax: (202) 228-3027

Dick Durbin:

Phone: 202-224-2152

Debbie Stabenow:

Phone:(202) 224-4822

Elizabeth Warren:

Phone: (202) 224-4543

Mark R. Warner:

Phone: 202-224-2023

Amy Klobuchar:

Phone: 202-224-3244

Fax: 202-228-2186

Bernie Sanders:

Phone: 202-224-5141 Fax: 202-228-0776

Catherine Cortez Masto:

Phone: (202) 224-3542

Joe Manchin:

Phone: 202-224-3954 Fax: 202-228-0002

Cory A. Booker:

Phone: (202) 224-3224

Fax: (202) 224-8378

Tammy Baldwin:

Phone: (202) 224-5653

Brian Schatz:

Phone: (202) 224-3934

Find Your Senator:

Or you can call the Congressional switchboard today and ask to be connected with each of your Senators’ offices. Demand they vote against this bill: (202) 224-3121

If you don’t like talking to people, you can call after their offices close so you can leave a message

you can also Text RESIST to 50409 to send your message into a fax and email to your senator

Call tools:

FFTF:

Fax:

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third-party companies, which would put them in further danger. This also exposes everyone else. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

——————————————————————————-------------------

Here's the HOUSE version of this post:

Make sure to share this around to get more people involved.

I also ask that if you have an account with these other sites, you share and upvote these posts(they're different posts):

Reddit-

-Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fight For The Future (@fightfortheftr)

-Bsky:

-Twitter:

-Tiktok: (i dont have tiktok so i cant link a kosa video here, my bad)

[2soulscollide]

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[notayamichan]

🌟 Learning Japanese 🇯🇵

🔔　あたしのガイドは、人が英語を話す向けー　(⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠)

The following guide is based on my personal experience. I am not an authority on the matter and I am still barely a beginner regarding Japanese.

What am I doing?

Learning languages seems non-lienar and that's partly true (at an intermediate level). But, when you're first starting out, there's generally clear goals to work toward.

Your Beginner Goals

Study and master kana

Japanese employs hiragana and katakana in conjunction with kanji. Together, hiragana and katakana make up kana.

Learn the kana (hiragana and katakana)

Learn the difference between kunyomi and onyomi (kanji)

Delve into grammar and establish some foundational vocab

Immerse yourself with input content (movies, shows, etc)

Study and practice a basic form of "pitch accent"

Continue developing your vocab and particle knowledge

Learn about polite versus casual talk and social culture

Use the language (letters, blog, diary, etc)

Seek conversations to apply the language properly

Find and study tests like JLPT to gauge your progress

What can I use?

Duolingo

If this was your first pick, you're naive but not foolish. It'll teach you enough to get help if you're lost in Japan. But it won't be enough to hold a conversation. Give it a try and see if it works for you. Duolingo is free.

I recommend using Duolingo as a supplementary learning tool rather than your primary learning tool

Textbooks and Guides

Many learners and even classes praise numerous textbooks. I for one received a recommendation for Tae Kim's Japanese Guide. So, I'll recommend it to you. Don't be afraid to see out other guides or attempt some textbooks. However, one should always remember that the textbook is NOT demonstrative of naturalistic Japanese.

For example, 「私は猫が好きです」 is what a textbook correctly teaches, though 「猫好きだよ」 is acceptable and more natural in casual Japanese

Building vocabulary

If you want to develop your vocabulary, you can use JLPT anki decks. Anki is a flashcard program for desktop and mobile. You can also use anki in conjunction with a dictionary like Jisho to create new flashcards decks (suited to the words you'd like to learn). You may also pick up vocab from Japanese media (i.e, anime, manga, books, content creators, music, etc).

If you're using Jisho and want to find a word you only know in English, search for it using quotation marks. For example, "school" or, if you want a verb "to learn" ~ it should help. You can spell out Japanese words normally by just typing... i.e, watashi.

Good input versus Bad input

Immersing yourself in Japanese media and culture is good but you need to be mindful of the content you're consuming— take note of the context behind events, interactions, or the relationship of speakers. Be especially mindful of anime and manga— both are known to use hyperbolic language or phrases that aren't commonly used in day to day conversation. Fortunately, some anime and manga do use everyday language, and you can usually find lists.

I recommend using the Tofugu blog to learn about both Japanese language and culture. But if you don't like reading, there are many YT channels like Kaname Naito and NihongoDekita with Sayaka. For general immersion though, here's a sweet vlog channel, a JP Warframe creator, and a natural born otaku.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Vittoria Elliott at Wired:

Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn. On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say that she is the “ultimate DEI hire” and a “deep-state puppet.” The post now bears a community note indicating that it is a parody. But many alleged that, shared without appropriate context, the video could have violated X’s policies on synthetic, or AI-altered, media. This was the culmination of Musk’s recent political rhetoric. Over the past month, Musk, after officially endorsing former president Donald Trump, has also boosted baseless conspiracies of a “coup” following Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service. After endorsing Trump, Musk announced that he was starting a pro-Trump political action committee (PAC), and initially committed to donate $45 million a month, before backtracking.

Former Twitter trust and safety employees say that Musk’s increasingly partisan behavior around the US elections and other major events is a sign that he is doing exactly what he accused the company’s former leadership of doing: playing politics. “It’s staggering hypocrisy,” says one former Twitter employee. “Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it’s a way to control the narrative.”

Three former employees, who spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, expressed concern that Musk presents a new kind of actor—someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so. “He is consolidating power and has systematically dismantled all markers of credibility at the company,” the former employee says. “However, I think it takes on additional significance when the person he is targeting is a presidential candidate.” Authorities appear to agree. Earlier this week, secretaries of state from Minnesota, Washington, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico sent a letter to X demanding changes to Grok, the platform’s generative AI search tool, after it returned false information claiming Harris had missed the deadline to be on the presidential ballot in nine states.

Musk and X did not respond to a request for comment. Musk has been ramping up to this moment for years. When he purchased Twitter in 2022, he promised free-speech absolutism. After taking over, Musk immediately fired the majority of the company’s policy and trust and safety staff, who were responsible for keeping hateful and misinformative content off the platform. This included those responsible for guiding the platform through contentious elections. As the former employees noted, there is now no one at the company to deal with a flood of election-related misinformation, let alone what Musk himself might spread. “There’s almost no one left,” the former employee says. Disinformation and hate speech on X have ballooned on the site, and a recent Pew Research study found that X has taken on a partisan tilt. Since Musk’s takeover, it’s become more popular with Republican users and less popular with Democrats, who are less likely than Republicans to say their views are welcomed at the site.

Ever since Elon Musk gotten ahold of X (formerly Twitter), he has turned it into a playground for far-right extremism.

[karlmarxmaybe]

All power to the soviets! Ok, now that the liberals have ran away: I am interested in how marxist-leninist theory can be applied in the critique of the internet, and what ideas have been brought up by communists on what a collectivized web could be like. We all know the privatized, globalized internet is a tool of capital, social media working as a content factory in which workers work for free and generate advertisement revenue for the enterprises like Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and the like. Now, it is also evident that web connection is a useful tool for communicating information, managing economical transaction and sharing knowledge. But under capitalism, any potential communal good that could come from the web is hampered by design; access to the internet is expensive and thus only easy for those that benefit from the spoils of imperialism (living in the imperial core); web hosting is privatized, social media is built as a factory of self-propaganda, the internet works esentially as a highway for globalized commerce and bourgeois exploitation in digital format. This is why I wonder how this could be dismantled in a communist regime (obviously it must start with state control and popular ownership of the physical means of digital production, but beyond that) and what shape a communist web would take, or if such a thing is possible at all. So if anyone knows any essays or books on the subject, please let me know, and thank you for your time.

@death-to-usa @bogleech @brendanicus @komsomolka @elbiotipo @hurricanewindattack @txttletale @papasmoke @transingthebourgeoisie @trans-girl-nausicaa @genderyomi @nyancrimew @communist-ojou-sama @communistkenobi @marxism-transgenderism @chrisdornerfanclub @commiemania @transmutationisms @gaylenin @lambdadelta-communism @autolenaphilia @little-bolshevik @apas-95 @kira-serialfaggot @thottacelli @zvaigzdelasas @daughter-of-sapph0 @decolonize-the-left @strawberry-crocodile @estrogenesis-evangelion

(communists of the entire website, unite!)