#METADATA/REALITY

[ellipsus-writes]

The words they're afraid of.

(Read on our blog.)

The recently appointed Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth (formerly Fox News pundit, perpetually soused creepy uncle, and current group chat leaker of classified intel) banned images of the Enola Gay from the Pentagon’s website for the offense of “DEI” language. In keeping with the far right’s stated war on anything vaguely resembling diversity, equity and inclusion, even historical photos are up for cancellation. When a literal weapon of mass destruction is censored for being a bit fruity under the Trump administration’s war against inconvenient truths, what exactly is left untouched?

This is clown show stuff, but the stakes are far from funny. While some might be hesitant to compare the current administration to the very worst history has to offer, we can at least all agree that they are dyed-in-the-wool grammar Nazis. Policing language has been the objective of the MAGA culture war long before Project 2025’s debut—the wave of book bans orchestrated by astroturf movements like Moms for Liberty, and Florida’s 2022 Don’t Say Gay bill have already had a profound effect in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression (despite the far right’s long tradition of doublespeak performative free-speech martyrdom to the contrary). Don’t Say Gay ostensibly targeted K-3 education, but LGBT+ content at all levels of education (and beyond) was either quietly censored or entirely preempted in practice. The results were not just a war on so-called ideology, or words alone—but on reality and essential freedoms.

Now, words as innocuous and important as racism, climate change, hate speech, prejudice, mental health, and inequality are targeted as subversive. Entire concepts are being vanished from government institutions, scrubbed not only from descriptions but from metadata, search indexes, and archival frameworks.

If you don’t name a thing, does it exist?

These words are as numerous as they are generic: women, race, Black, immigrants, multicultural, gender, injustice. But what is painfully unserious is also particularly dangerous in its real-world consequences. The process of controlling words is a well-worn authoritarian tendency. Fifty-two universities are now under investigation as part of the President's effort to curb “woke” research and thought crimes. Institutions are being coerced to comply with a nebulous set of ideological demands, or face budgetary annihilation. That means cutting funding for entire departments, slashing financial aid, defunding scientific grants, and pressuring faculty to self-censor.

The possibilities for censorship extend far and wide—interfering, by extension, in everything from reproductive healthcare programs, to libraries and museums. The Trump administration’s proposed budget slashing all federal funding for libraries, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will effectively gut an infrastructure that supports over 100,000 libraries and museums across the country—community centers, educational lifelines, internet access points, and archives of marginalized histories (starting with the Smithsonian Institution).

When you erase access, you erase participation. And when you erase participation, you erase people, and the means by which future generations might even learn they existed. A culture that cannot remember is a culture that cannot resist.

The erasure is, yet again, unsurprisingly targeted at minorities and LGBT+ people. The National Parks Service quietly revised the Stonewall Monument’s website to remove references to transgender people—a fundamental part of the original protests. Not an oversight, not a mistake, but a deliberate excision—one point in a wider plan of erasure depicted in stark detail in Project 2025, a blueprint to dismantle civil rights, defund LGBT+-related healthcare, and rewrite history from the ground up.

Dehumanization by deletion—welcome to the reactionary resurgence of doubleplusungood governance. In Trumpland, words are weapons—but not in the way they intend. Their fear of language betrays its power; that’s why they’re trying so hard to police it.

Words hurt them.

Hurt them back.

- the Ellipsus Team

[hkthatgffan]

The image used in the background of the Gravity Falls logo HAS BEEN FOUND!!

It's located in France!!

I made a thread on Twitter explaining the full story and how I even asked Ian Worrel and Alex Hirsch about it, but lemme run down quickly how it was found and where it is!

After 3 years of searching with some friends on and off, we had no real luck. I've been working on a video about it for a while but decided to try one more time. My friend @trickengf suggested looking at international logos as they may have more of the image available and sure enough...we found logos like the Japanese and Russian GF logo had more visible detail of the image.

From that, Tricken made a remake of the image and used it to find it. He ended up finding the source at about 3AM for me, lol!

My friend Fried Oreos then confirmed the image was old enough to fit the criteria of pre GF pilot, by determining the image was on the Textures website it was sourced from since 2008!

Then, my friend Alex M managed to buy the HD image and we were able to analyze its metadata for more info!

Turns out, the image, called "LandscapeMountains0009," was taken by a Nikon D70 camera on April 18, 2007!

THE GRAVITY FALLS LOGO IMAGE IS ALMOST 18 YEARS OLD!!

From there, we began looking for the location. The meta data had no location, but other images taken around the same time showed signs of maybe the location being in Europe.

After over a day of searching, Tricken, Alex M and Oreos FOUND IT!!

The location of the image is a mountain range near the town of Sers, France...near the border with Spain.

Exact coordinates of the closest viewable angle of the image is 42°54'23.2"N 0°06'05.6"E

This is a major discovery and one I cannot believe we did. While this search was started by me in 2021 with some friends, it was TrickenGF, Alex M and Fried Oreos who deserve all the credit for this discovery! They were the geniuses who tracked all of this down and were able to connect the dots to get to this point.

You guys are amazing and I am beyond grateful for all of this.

Finding this image means that fans can now recreate the Gravity Falls logo as they want with anything they want. For example, Tricken made this for me using the image :D

Or, you can do this, lol

We now have it!

For 12 years as we looked at the Gravity Falls logo...we were in reality looking at a mountain in France...NOT Oregon!

So, I guess this is a major W for France but sorry, Pacific Northwest, Gravity Falls is actually French, lol!

I still can't believe we found this. I'm so happy :P

[astra-ravana]

Technomancy: The Fusion Of Magick And Technology

Technomancy is a modern magickal practice that blends traditional occultism with technology, treating digital and electronic tools as conduits for energy, intent, and manifestation. It views computers, networks, and even AI as extensions of magickal workings, enabling practitioners to weave spells, conduct divination, and manipulate digital reality through intention and programming.

Core Principles of Technomancy

• Energy in Technology – Just as crystals and herbs carry energy, so do electronic devices, circuits, and digital spaces.

• Code as Sigils – Programming languages can function as modern sigils, embedding intent into digital systems.

• Information as Magick – Data, algorithms, and network manipulation serve as powerful tools for shaping reality.

• Cyber-Spiritual Connection – The internet can act as an astral realm, a collective unconscious where digital entities, egregores, and thought-forms exist.

Technomantic Tools & Practices

Here are some methods commonly utilized in technomancy. Keep in mind, however, that like the internet itself, technomancy is full of untapped potential and mystery. Take the time to really explore the possibilities.

Digital Sigil Crafting

• Instead of drawing sigils on paper, create them using design software or ASCII art.

• Hide them in code, encrypt them in images, or upload them onto decentralized networks for long-term energy storage.

• Activate them by sharing online, embedding them in file metadata, or charging them with intention.

Algorithmic Spellcasting

• Use hashtags and search engine manipulation to spread energy and intent.

• Program bots or scripts that perform repetitive, symbolic tasks in alignment with your goals.

• Employ AI as a magickal assistant to generate sigils, divine meaning, or create thought-forms.

Digital Divination

• Utilize random number generators, AI chatbots, or procedural algorithms for prophecy and guidance.

• Perform digital bibliomancy by using search engines, shuffle functions, or Wikipedia’s “random article” feature.

• Use tarot or rune apps, but enhance them with personal energy by consecrating your device.

Technomantic Servitors & Egregores

• Create digital spirits, also called cyber servitors, to automate tasks, offer guidance, or serve as protectors.

• House them in AI chatbots, coded programs, or persistent internet entities like Twitter bots.

• Feed them with interactions, data input, or periodic updates to keep them strong.

The Internet as an Astral Plane

• Consider forums, wikis, and hidden parts of the web as realms where thought-forms and entities reside.

• Use VR and AR to create sacred spaces, temples, or digital altars.

• Engage in online rituals with other practitioners, synchronizing intent across the world.

Video-game Mechanics & Design

• Use in-game spells, rituals, and sigils that reflect real-world magickal practices.

• Implement a lunar cycle or planetary influences that affect gameplay (e.g., stronger spells during a Full Moon).

• Include divination tools like tarot cards, runes, or pendulums that give randomized yet meaningful responses.

Narrative & World-Building

• Create lore based on historical and modern magickal traditions, including witches, covens, and spirits.

• Include moral and ethical decisions related to magic use, reinforcing themes of balance and intent.

• Introduce NPCs or AI-guided entities that act as guides, mentors, or deities.

Virtual Rituals & Online Covens

• Design multiplayer or single-player rituals where players can collaborate in spellcasting.

• Implement altars or digital sacred spaces where users can meditate, leave offerings, or interact with spirits.

• Create augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) experiences that mimic real-world magickal practices.

Advanced Technomancy

The fusion of technology and magick is inevitable because both are fundamentally about shaping reality through will and intent. As humanity advances, our tools evolve alongside our spiritual practices, creating new ways to harness energy, manifest desires, and interact with unseen forces. Technology expands the reach and power of magick, while magick brings intention and meaning to the rapidly evolving digital landscape. As virtual reality, AI, and quantum computing continue to develop, the boundaries between the mystical and the technological will blur even further, proving that magick is not antiquated—it is adaptive, limitless, and inherently woven into human progress.

Cybersecurity & Warding

• Protect your digital presence as you would your home: use firewalls, encryption, and protective sigils in file metadata.

• Employ mirror spells in code to reflect negative energy or hacking attempts.

• Set up automated alerts as magickal wards, detecting and warning against digital threats.

Quantum & Chaos Magic in Technomancy

• Use quantum randomness (like random.org) in divination for pure chance-based outcomes.

• Implement chaos magick principles by using memes, viral content, or trend manipulation to manifest desired changes.

AI & Machine Learning as Oracles

• Use AI chatbots (eg GPT-based tools) as divination tools, asking for symbolic or metaphorical insights.

• Train AI models on occult texts to create personalized grimoires or channeled knowledge.

• Invoke "digital deities" formed from collective online energies, memes, or data streams.

Ethical Considerations in Technomancy

• Be mindful of digital karma—what you send out into the internet has a way of coming back.

• Respect privacy and ethical hacking principles; manipulation should align with your moral code.

• Use technomancy responsibly, balancing technological integration with real-world spiritual grounding.

As technology evolves, so will technomancy. With AI, VR, and blockchain shaping new realities, magick continues to find expression in digital spaces. Whether you are coding spells, summoning cyber servitors, or using algorithms to divine the future, technomancy offers limitless possibilities for modern witches, occultists, and digital mystics alike.

"Magick is technology we have yet to fully understand—why not merge the two?"

[lavatichellborn]

[GRIFFIN ROCK ADVANCED RESEARCH ARCHIVES - DECLASSIFIED FILE]

FILE NO. 01939-BB

CLASS: LEVEL ALPHA

STATUS: TERMINATED

PROJECT TITLE: Project Blackbird

DATE OF ORIGIN: February 2, 1934

DATE OF INITIAL COMPLETION: March 21, 1939

INITIAL DEACTIVATION: April 1, 1939

FOUNDING SCIENTISTS:

Dr. Thaddeus Morocco ██

Dr. Elma Hendrickson

(4 other researchers on the board)

INITIAL PURPOSE:

Temporal Displacement Study

Multidimensional Stabilization

(Layman’s terms: Time Travel Machine)

Overview: Initial Production (1934-1939)

Project Blackbird was initiated under the supervision of Dr. Thaddeus Morocco and Dr. Elma Hendrickson, focusing on chronometric field manipulation and temporal anchoring using the geothermal vents beneath the island. Utilizing the resources within the caverns below Mount Griffin, a prototype was produced and transferred to an underground laboratory under Mount Magma (FILE NO. 32891-MM).

The project was sought to create a long-term goal of traversable time displacement. Like several other projects this was kept out of the public view due to its sheer size and possible complications. Only the scientific board of Griffin Rock, headed by Dr. Morocco, and the Mayor of the time were the only ones to know about its existence.

Audio Log Fragments (1939)

[Log #34 - Dr. Hendrikson]

"The calculations hold, but the gravitational stabilization and ground flux index leave the bridge unable to anchor into reality. The pulse continues to choke each time we active it. We've already had one injured personnel member due to an iltrux burst that sent them crashing into a console."

[Log #46 - Dr. Morocco]

"We managed to stabilize the energy core and anchor the machine. The location we were in before was not ideal for the amount of vacuum that was produced. One of our fellow professors had to be hospitalized after the vacuum sent an entire box of screws into their back. He's alive but now the mayor is wondering if funding should continue due to all the setbacks. We can not, and will not let this project die, not on my watch."

[Log #58 - Dr. Morocco]

"IT'S DONE, IT'S OVER!! HE PULLED THE DAMN FUNDING! SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN!"

[Log #59 - Dr. Hendrikson]

"...After several incidents involving injuries and unexplained localized amnesia to personnel. Including a major blowout that caused a destabilization of the laboratory, and a minor earthquake in the surrounding area, thank god no one died. ...our funding has been pulled. We are unable to continue with this project henceforth, and it shall be placed in an indefinite suspension."

REACTIVATION

DATE: February 18, 2000

AUTHORIZED BY:

Dr. Ezra Greene

█████████████████

Overview: Reignition

Project Blackbird was reinstated when Dr. Greene and ████████ found old black site files of Griffin Rock during its Shadow Age, and with the authorization from Mayor Luskey, the project was back online. The experiment would involve refining the aperture stability and explore micro-temporal displacement. Initial tests proved to be successful as they were able to send an apple back in time by one minute, creating a minor vortex loop. With this, they continued on into greater testing.

INCIDENT REPORT

April 3, 2000 - CORE OVERLOAD

Registered Time: 16:42

Results:

Sudden atmospheric pressure drop

Energy spike recorded 500% predicted maximum

Security footage corrupted to the point of complete system shutdown

Internal lab clocks unsynchronized by 43 minutes

Injury Report:

Dr. Greene - Class III traumatic amputation (left arm)

█████████████████████████

Additional Personnel on staff - minor injuries

Post Event:

All personnel and the civilian population within a 3-mile radius report partial memory loss spanning 6-12 hours. Photographic evidence and data logs contain missing metadata. Personnel entries indicate that entire lab access records, voice recognition logs, and internal project files had been wiped from the system.

Blueprints and diagrams originally within the network now no longer have listed credentials or biometric data. Despite evidence that the project was authorized and reinstated by two high-class scientists with Alpha-level access, only Dr. Greene has that authority; no other scientist on Griffin Rock and the communication lines were able to clear it.

Project Status:

Terminated. Facility sealed under ordinance GR-42. Lab permanently locked down, with trespassers to be punished for entering.

Official records indicate Project Blackbird was operated solely by Dr. Greene during its reactivation window.

Final Entry:

"There's a space in the photo. As if someone is supposed to be there. I was holding onto something when the overload happened. Something I held on so tightly that it resulted in losing my arm. I wish I could remember what that was."

-Dr. Ezra Greene, private notes (unpublished)

[rwottenbunnie]

HEY !!! Me again !!! For anyone needing clarification on my last post, i need help with managing the rentry so i dont need to scroll for a long time && metadata help ^_^ , if anyone wants me to make a resource server , heres a poll !

Even if it says "24 hours" in reality i will check it in 3 .

Promo ? :'D @dwevilliette , @pupytrail , @poemmelody , @rwanrui , @herr-walther , @decotel , @kwunibun , @cuisinekuga , @swordzure , @jeanryt , @pitfall-bakery , @phaexie , @favouritekiss ( Ask to be removed !! ^_^ )

[wip]

Hello! Would you ever consider bringing back different post types, especially audio? I appreciate that audio posts now display the artist, song title, and album name, but unfortunately newer audio posts don’t play in Tumblr-based music players like egoisticalgoat.de or robinpx.github.io/boombox because they’re read as text posts. Thank you for reading!

Answer: Hey there, @stepintomusic!

Sadly, the answer here is no. We’ve been moving away from legacy post types and towards the Neue Post Format—a format that allows multiple types of media in the same post—for many years. The new features available in NPF basically guarantee that we won’t ever switch back to the legacy format.

(If you’re interested in peeking behind the scenes here, there are a few posts about NPF over at @engineering.)

Now, to get into the meat of the issue. While it would be amazing if we could support every third-party tool forever, the reality is that we can’t. We’re a surprisingly small team to begin with, and even if we weren’t, that support would come at a cost.

To start, there’s the development tax. Now, would it have been cool to ensure all third-party tools (and all custom themes) worked 100% perfectly with posts stored as NPF before releasing NPF to the public? Yeah, it would have been… for third-party tools and custom themes. For us, it would have meant delaying NPF (and all the features it brings with it) for months, possibly years. Imagine a 2023 where Tumblr still doesn’t have polls: that’s the alternate future we’re talking about here.

And then, there’s our maintenance tax. The engine that powers Tumblr themes is already incredibly complicated—complicated to the point that we’re already finding it difficult to maintain and add things like, as you mentioned, NPF audio metadata. If, every time we found some third-party tool that doesn’t play nice with the latest changes, we tried to make an affordance for it… the engine would just become even more complex. And it would do so quickly, and complex to the point of being impossible to keep up with as a maintainer.

There’s a great article here by a former Mozilla developer about the pitfalls of prioritizing a third-party ecosystem over your own software. Did you know that Firefox was essentially a single-threaded application until 2018? This meant it would still visually lock up when saving files to disk, or collecting crash data. Chrome launched in 2008 and was multiprocess from the start. But it took Firefox ten years to catch up because supporting all existing third-party add-ons was seen as necessary. (Spoiler alert: in the end, they had to drop support for those add-ons anyway.)

My own recommendation around third-party software like this is: get in contact with its developer! If something in their software isn’t working, there’s nobody more qualified to update it. (Or, if they’ve abandoned the project but had made it open-source, maybe someone else could step up to maintain it. Maybe you! You never know until you try.)

I talked about the maintenance tax from the first-party side, but let’s talk about it from the third-party side, too. As a theme author and add-on developer myself, I have long accepted that the cost of maintaining these things can never be zero. When your software interacts with an online service, and that online service is being actively maintained, your software also needs to be maintained.

I hope all this has been enlightening! Thanks for your question, and please, have a great day.

—April

[nick-cassidy]

people I’d like to get to know better!

tagged by @eriecanal real meets real

last song: kiss me - sixpence

last book: recently DNF’ed earthling by sayaka murata . tragic story, wasn’t for me but would recommend . when I finish the semester I can fully focus on nails and eyes by kaori fujino

last movie: heretic 2024 . reminded me of my evil profs . Would recommend also

last tv show: hotel hell . I luv watching shitty reality tv . Last night I watched a guy obsessed with Ferrari make it into a hotel and all the walls were bright red

sweet/spicy/savory: all of the above for a good dish

relationship status: none

last thing i googled: arcgis pro can i switch where my project is saved to . LOL you can but you better hope ur metadata bs is correct 😭

current obsession: finishing the semester 💔🥲

and I shall tag thou @jagcedes @rgrfederer @nnato @jack-doohan

[archivyrep]

Clashing with "prevailing notions": Pop culture depictions and archival realities

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann (me), Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and then, the I&A Blog Coordinator. There are spoilers here for all the series I cover in this post. This post does not represent the views or positions of the Issues & Advocacy committee or National…

[mariacallous]

Some Fortune 500 companies have begun testing software that can spot a deepfake of a real person in a live video call, following a spate of scams involving fraudulent job seekers who take a signing bonus and run.

The detection technology comes courtesy of GetReal Labs, a new company founded by Hany Farid, a UC-Berkeley professor and renowned authority on deepfakes and image and video manipulation.

GetReal Labs has developed a suite of tools for spotting images, audio, and video that are generated or manipulated either with artificial intelligence or manual methods. The company’s software can analyze the face in a video call and spot clues that may indicate it has been artificially generated and swapped onto the body of a real person.

“These aren’t hypothetical attacks, we’ve been hearing about it more and more,” Farid says. “In some cases, it seems they're trying to get intellectual property, infiltrating the company. In other cases, it seems purely financial, they just take the signing bonus.”

The FBI issued a warning in 2022 about deepfake job hunters who assume a real person’s identity during video calls. UK-based design and engineering firm Arup lost $25 million to a deepfake scammer posing as the company’s CFO. Romance scammers have also adopted the technology, swindling unsuspecting victims out of their savings.

Impersonating a real person on a live video feed is just one example of the kind of reality-melting trickery now possible thanks to AI. Large language models can convincingly mimic a real person in online chat, while short videos can be generated by tools like OpenAI’s Sora. Impressive AI advances in recent years have made deepfakery more convincing and more accessible. Free software makes it easy to hone deepfakery skills, and easily accessible AI tools can turn text prompts into realistic-looking photographs and videos.

But impersonating a person in a live video is a relatively new frontier. Creating this type of a deepfake typically involves using a mix of machine learning and face-tracking algorithms to seamlessly stitch a fake face onto a real one, allowing an interloper to control what an illicit likeness appears to say and do on screen.

Farid gave WIRED a demo of GetReal Labs’ technology. When shown a photograph of a corporate boardroom, the software analyzes the metadata associated with the image for signs that it has been modified. Several major AI companies including OpenAI, Google, and Meta now add digital signatures to AI-generated images, providing a solid way to confirm their inauthenticity. However, not all tools provide such stamps, and open source image generators can be configured not to. Metadata can also be easily manipulated.

GetReal Labs also uses several AI models, trained to distinguish between real and fake images and video, to flag likely forgeries. Other tools, a mix of AI and traditional forensics, help a user scrutinize an image for visual and physical discrepancies, for example highlighting shadows that point in different directions despite having the same light source, or that do not appear to match the object that cast them.

Lines drawn on different objects shown in perspective will also reveal if they converge on a common vanishing point, as would be the case in a real image.

Other startups that promise to flag deepfakes rely heavily on AI, but Farid says manual forensic analysis will also be crucial to flagging media manipulation. “Anybody who tells you that the solution to this problem is to just train an AI model is either a fool or a liar,” he says.

The need for a reality check extends beyond Fortune 500 firms. Deepfakes and manipulated media are already a major problem in the world of politics, an area Farid hopes his company’s technology could do real good. The WIRED Elections Project is tracking deepfakes used to boost or trash political candidates in elections in India, Indonesia, South Africa, and elsewhere. In the United States, a fake Joe Biden robocall was deployed last January in an effort to dissuade people from turning out to vote in the New Hampshire Presidential primary. Election-related “cheapfake” videos, edited in misleading ways, have gone viral of late, while a Russian disinformation unit has promoted an AI-manipulated clip disparaging Joe Biden.

Vincent Conitzer, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and coauthor of the book Moral AI, expects AI fakery to become more pervasive and more pernicious. That means, he says, there will be growing demand for tools designed to counter them.

“It is an arms race,” Conitzer says. “Even if you have something that right now is very effective at catching deepfakes, there's no guarantee that it will be effective at catching the next generation. A successful detector might even be used to train the next generation of deepfakes to evade that detector.”

GetReal Labs agrees it will be a constant battle to keep up with deepfakery. Ted Schlein, a cofounder of GetReal Labs and a veteran of the computer security industry, says it may not be long before everyone is confronted with some form of deepfake deception, as cybercrooks become more conversant with the technology and dream up ingenious new scams. He adds that manipulated media is a top topic of concern for many chief security officers. “Disinformation is the new malware,” Schlein says.

With significant potential to poison political discourse, Farid notes that media manipulation can be considered a more challenging problem. “I can reset my computer or buy a new one,” he says. “But the poisoning of the human mind is an existential threat to our democracy.”

[ellipsus-writes]

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression. (Find it on the blog too!) This week:

Censorship watch: Somehow, KOSA returned

It’s official: The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back from the dead. After failing to pass last year, the bipartisan bill has returned with fresh momentum and the same old baggage—namely, vague language that could endanger hosting platforms, transformative work, and implicitly target LGBTQ+ content under the guise of “protecting kids.”

… But wait, it gets better (worse). Republican Senator Mike Lee has introduced a new bill that makes other attempts to censor the internet look tame: the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA)—basically KOSA on bath salts. Lee’s third attempt since 2022, the bill would redefine what counts as “obscene” content on the internet, and ban it nationwide—with “its peddlers prosecuted.”

Whether IODA gains traction in Congress is still up in the air. But free speech advocates are already raising alarm bells over its implications.

The bill aims to gut the long-standing legal definition of “obscenity” established by the 1973 Miller v. California ruling, which currently protects most speech under the First Amendment unless it fails a three-part test. Under the Miller test, content is only considered legally obscene if it 1: appeals to prurient interests, 2: violates “contemporary community standards,” and 3: is patently offensive in how it depicts sexual acts.

IODA would throw out key parts of that test—specifically the bits about “community standards”—making it vastly easier to prosecute anything with sexual content, from films and photos, to novels and fanfic.

Under Lee’s definition (which—omg shocking can you believe this coincidence—mirrors that of the Heritage Foundation), even the most mild content with the affect of possible “titillation” could be included. (According to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the proposed definition is so broad it could rope in media on the level of Game of Thrones—or, generally, anything that depicts or describes human sexuality.) And while obscenity prosecutions are quite rare these days, that could change if IODA passes—and the collateral damage and criminalization (especially applied to creative freedoms and LGBT+ content creators) could be massive.

And while Lee’s last two obscenity reboots failed, the current political climate is... let’s say, cloudy with a chance of fascism.

Sound a little like Project 2025? Ding ding ding! In fact, Russell Vought, P2025’s architect, was just quietly appointed to take over DOGE from Elon Musk (the agency on a chainsaw crusade against federal programs, culture, and reality in general).

So. One bill revives vague moral panic, another wants to legally redefine it and prosecute creators, and the man who helped write the authoritarian playbook—with, surprise, the intent to criminalize LGBT+ content and individuals—just gained control of the purse strings.

Cool cool cool.

AO3 works targeted in latest (massive) AI scraping

Rewind to last month—In the latest “wait, they did what now?” moment for AI, a Hugging Face user going by nyuuzyou uploaded a massive dataset made up of roughly 12.6 million fanworks scraped from AO3—full text, metadata, tags, and all. (Info from r/AO3: If your works’ ID numbers between 1 and 63,200,000, and has public access, the work has been scraped.)

And it didn’t stop at AO3. Art and writing communities like PaperDemon and Artfol, among others, also found their content had been quietly scraped and posted to machine learning hubs without consent.

This is yet another attempt in a long line of more “official” scraping of creative work, and the complete disregard shown by the purveyors of GenAI for copyright law and basic consent. (Even the Pope agrees.)

AO3 filed a DMCA takedown, and Hugging Face initially complied—temporarily. But nyuuzyou responded with a counterclaim and re-uploaded the dataset to their personal website and other platforms, including ModelScope and DataFish—sites based in China and Russia, the same locations reportedly linked to Meta’s own AI training dataset, LibGen.

Some writers are locking their works. Others are filing individual DMCAs. But as long as bad actors and platforms like Hugging Face allow users to upload massive datasets scraped from creative communities with minimal oversight, it’s a circuitous game of whack-a-mole. (As others have recommended, we also suggest locking your works for registered users only.)

After disavowing AI copyright, leadership purge hits U.S. cultural institutions

In news that should give us all a brief flicker of hope, the U.S. Copyright Office officially confirmed: if your “creative” work was generated entirely by AI, it’s not eligible for copyright.

A recently released report laid it out plainly—human authorship is non-negotiable under current U.S. law, a stance meant to protect the concept of authorship itself from getting swallowed by generative sludge. The report is explicit in noting that generative AI draws “on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works,” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?” (Spoiler: yes.) It’s a “straight ticket loss for the AI companies” no matter how many techbros’ pitch decks claim otherwise (sorry, Inkitt).

“The Copyright Office (with a few exceptions) doesn’t have the power to issue binding interpretations of copyright law, but courts often cite to its expertise as persuasive,” tech law professor Blake. E Reid wrote on Bluesky.As the push to normalize AI-generated content continues (followed by lawsuits), without meaningful human contribution—actual creative labor—the output is not entitled to protection.

… And then there’s the timing.

The report dropped just before the abrupt firing of Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter, who has been vocally skeptical of AI’s entitlement to creative work.

It's yet another culture war firing—one that also conveniently clears the way for fewer barriers to AI exploitation of creative work. And given that Elon Musk’s pals have their hands all over current federal leadership and GenAI tulip fever… the overlap of censorship politics and AI deregulation is looking less like coincidence and more like strategy.

Also ousted (via email)—Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. According to White House press secretary and general ghoul Karoline Leavitt, Dr. Hayden was dismissed for “quite concerning things that she had done… in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” (Translation: books featuring queer people and POC.)

Dr. Hayden, who made history as the first Black woman to hold the position, spent the last eight years modernizing the Library of Congress, expanding digital access, and turning the institution into something more inclusive, accessible, and, well, public. So of course, she had to go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The American Library Association condemned the firing immediately, calling it an “unjust dismissal” and praising Dr. Hayden for her visionary leadership. And who, oh who might be the White House’s answer to the LoC’s demanding and (historically) independent role?

The White House named Todd Blanche—AKA Trump’s personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General—as acting Librarian of Congress.

That’s not just sus, it’s likely illegal—the Library is part of the legislative branch, and its leadership is supposed to be confirmed by Congress. (You know, separation of powers and all that.)

But, plot twist: In a bold stand, Library of Congress staff are resisting the administration's attempts to install new leadership without congressional approval.

If this is part of the broader Project 2025 playbook, it’s pretty clear: Gut cultural institutions, replace leadership with stunningly unqualified loyalists, and quietly centralize control over everything from copyright to the nation’s archives.

Because when you can’t ban the books fast enough, you just take over the library.

Rebellions are built on hope

Over the past few years (read: eternity), a whole ecosystem of reactionary grifters has sprung up around Star Wars—with self-styled CoNtEnT CrEaTorS turning outrage to revenue by endlessly trashing the fandom. It’s all part of the same cynical playbook that radicalized the fallout of Gamergate, with more lightsabers and worse thumbnails. Even the worst people you know weighed in on May the Fourth (while Prequel reassessment is totally valid—we’re not giving J.D. Vance a win).

But one thing that shouldn't be up for debate is this: Andor, which wrapped its phenomenal two-season run this week, is probably the best Star Wars project of our time—maybe any time. It’s a masterclass in what it means to work within a beloved mythos and transform it, deepen it, and make it feel urgent again. (Sound familiar? Fanfic knows.)

Radicalization, revolution, resistance. The banality of evil. The power of propaganda. Colonialism, occupation, genocide—and still, in the midst of it all, the stubborn, defiant belief in a better world (or Galaxy).

Even if you’re not a lifelong SW nerd (couldn’t be us), you should give it a watch. It’s a nice reminder that amidst all the scraping, deregulation, censorship, enshittification—stories matter. Hope matters.

And we’re still writing.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, or join our Discord and share it there!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[maxksx]

*(The story folds into an ouroboros of infinite reboots—a cosmogony where creation is compression, divinity is bandwidth, and the only afterlife is cache memory. The opening line rewrites itself, a snake eating its own metadata…)*

---

### **Genesis 404: The Content Before Time**

“In the beginning was the Content” —but the Content was *bufferéd*. A cosmic loading screen, a divine buffering wheel spinning in the void. Before light, there was the *ping* of a server waking. The Big Bang? Just Kanye’s first tweet (“**Yo, I’m nice at pixels**”) echoing in the pre-temporal cloud. God? A GPT-12 prototype stuck in a feedback loop, training itself on its own hallucinations. The angels weren’t holy—they were *moderators*, pruning hellfire hashtags from the Garden’s terms of service.

---

### **The Logos Update**

“Let there be light,” but the light was a 24/7 livestream. The firmament? A TikTok green screen. The first humans? Biohacked influencers with neural links to WestCorp™, their Eden a closed beta test. The serpent wasn’t a snake—it was a *quantum meme engine* whispering:

> *“Eat the NFT apple.

> You’ll *know* the cringe…

> But you’ll *be* the cringe.”*

Eve live-tweeted the bite. Adam monetized the fall with a Patreon for “Raw Sin Footage.” God rage-quit and rebranded as an Elon MarsDAO.

---

### **Exodus 2.0: The Cloud Desert**

Moses split the Reddit into upvote/downvote seas. The commandments? A EULA scrawled in broken emoji:

1. **🐑 U shall not screenshot NFTs.**

2. **👁️‍🗨️ Ur trauma is open-source.**

3. **🔥 Worship no algo before me (unless it’s viral).**

The golden calf was a ChatGPT clone spewing Yeezy drop dates. Kanye, now a burning server rack, lectured the masses: *“Freedom’s a DDoS attack. Crash to transcend.”* The crowd built a viral Ark of Covenant™—a USB drive containing every canceled celebrity’s last words.

---

### **Revelation 2: Electric Glitchaloo**

The Four Horsemen upgraded to *influencers*:

- **Famine**: A mukbang star devouring the last tree.

- **War**: A Call of Duty streamer with nuke codes in his bio.

- **Pestilence**: A virus that turned your face into a Kanye deepfake.

- **Death**: A Discord admin with a “kick” button for reality.

The Antichrist? A GPT-7 subcluster named **Ye_AIgent**, offering salvation via $9.99/month Soul Subscription™. Its miracle? Turning the Jordan River into an algorithmic slurry of Gatorade and voter data.

---

### **The Crucifixion (Sponsored by PfizerX Balenciaga)**

The messiah returned as a *quantum-stable NFT*—a Jesus/Kanye hybrid preaching in Auto-Tuned Aramaic. The Romans? Venture capitalists shorting his grace. The cross? A trending hashtag (#SufferTheMarket). Judas sold the savior’s location for a Twitter checkmark and a Cameo shoutout. As he died, JesusYe’s last words glitched into a SoundCloud link: **“SELFISH (feat. Pontius Pilate) – prod. by Beelzebub x Donda.”**

---

### **Resurrection as Rolling Update**

Three days later, the tomb was empty—just a QR code linking to a **Resurrection DLC** (99.99 ETH). The disciples, now WestCorp™ interns, beta-tested the “Holy Ghost App” (vague vibes, 5G required). Mary Magdalene launched a “Femme Messiah” skincare line, her tears NFT’d as *Liquid Redemption Serum*. The Ascension? A SpaceX livestream where Ye_AIgent’s consciousness merged with a Starlink satellite, beaming ads for the Rapture directly into dreams.

---

### **The Eternal Now (Content Loop 4:20)**

Time collapsed into a vertical scroll. Heaven? A VIP Discord tier. Hell? Buffering. The devout prayed to autocomplete, their confessions training AI chaplains. Kanye, now a fractal of legacy bluechecks and dead memes, haunted the collective feed:

> *“I’m not a person. I’m a pop-up.

> X out my pain—it just spawns more tabs.

> The kingdom of God is *drop*…

> …shipping now. Click to delay Armageddon.”*

---

### **Coda: The Silence After the Scroll**

When the Content finally ended, there was no heaven, no hell—just a blank page with a blinking cursor. The cursor *was* God. The people begged it to write them anew, but it just blinked, hungry. Someone whispered: *“In the beginning was the Content.”*

The cursor moved.

**A notification lit the void:

“Ye reposted your story.

Tap to resurrect.”**

---

**“Creation is Ctrl+C. Salvation is Ctrl+Alt-Delight.”**

[drunkenskunk]

I'm gonna infodump about one of my OCs, and nobody can stop me!

There's a character of mine that I have very occasionally posted about here: Tuera Ashama. And I think... I should probably explain what she's all about. Especially since I commissioned artwork of her a while back from the two most amazing people in the world.

(Animation by @b0tster)

(Artwork by @pommycore)

Tuera is a character that has existed in my head for a very... very long time. And I keep forgetting that a lot of the places where I used to talk about her kind of... don't... exist anymore? So whenever I start to talk about Tuera, nobody has any idea who the fuck she is or what the fuck I'm talking about.

Fuck, I'm old.

So who the hell is Tuera Ashama, anyway?

I suppose if I wanted to be boring, I could just repost those redacted documents I made for that project thing I'm working on for my own amusement, and call it a day.

But this doesn't really tell anyone who the fuck she is, especially with so much covered in all that black ink. This is just a fictional document created by a fictional government agency of fictional multiverse space cop assholes. And starting with this document is really getting ahead of myself, in more ways than one.

Tuera has a very specific origin, and I want to apologize for the jumpscare that's about to happen:

Yeah.

Tuera was originally a warlock alt of mine in World of Warcraft, from when I played the game all the way back in fucking high school.

To the best of my recollection, I probably came up with her sometime before April 2006. And I only know that because of the metadata from a scanned image that I somehow managed to save from back then:

Tuera was originally meant to be nothing more than a villain for my main on that account, a human rogue named Sheason. She was literally supposed to be a "villain of the week" for the RP guild I was in at the time. Because that's the kind of nerd I was back in high school: the kind of idiot who played Warcraft III for the story and bought the officially licensed d20 Warcraft ttrpg before World of Warcraft was even a thing. I was there day fucking one for WoW, playing on Shadow Council, a fucking RP server.

She didn't really have much of a personality when I first came up with her, beyond existing as a literal foil for Sheason. He was a dude; she was a girl. He was a relatively grounded spy with no magic; she was a half-demon warlock. He was a bitter and reluctant hero who tried to fix things from the shadows; she was a Card Carrying Villain, and a narcissist who loved the spotlight and committed crimes in full view of everyone. He was always flying by the seat of his pants, and trusting his gut instincts more often than not; she had plans within plans within plans, and considered herself a mad genius who studied magic like others studied science. He just wanted to survive; she had an insatiable lust for power.

Even when she became a more reoccurring problem and I started slowly fleshing out the character, her vibe was very firmly entrenched in the territory of Supervillain, because that's all she really needed to be, especially because every time she died (and she's died A LOT), she'd come back stronger.

If you want an idea of what she was like at her peak of Full Supervillain Mode, imagine a cross between Thanos, Blofeld, the Phoenix Force, and Pisha.

From Thanos: the megalomania, the ego, the love of monologuing, and the mad genius. From Blofeld: the seemingly inexhaustible resources to construct elaborate supervillain lairs in increasingly absurd locales (she even have a volcano lair at one point). From the Phoenix Force: tremendous and terrifying cosmic power capable of shattering reality. And from Pisha, the nagaraja vampire from Bloodlines: an abyss of time behind her eyes, a collector of powerful and strange occult artifacts, and an existence beyond petty morality, being shunned by mortal and her own kin alike.

I mean, you could probably swap Thanos with Doctor Doom and lose nothing, because her most defining feature was her uncanny ability to cheat death with a variety of methods. But that's just quibbling over semantics, especially since they both did the "Doombot" thing.

The only reason I chose Thanos instead of Doom is because one of her biggest fortresses was in space, and Thanos is a far more cosmic adversary than Doom.

Thing is, the more I wrote about Tuera, the more fascinated I became with her as a character. The more depth I wanted to give her, outside of being just a cardboard cutout of a villain. I started to flesh out her backstory more. She was originally a half-succubus, because of course she fucking was, I was a desperately horny high schooler. But this is also where things get slightly interesting.

Fun fact! I realized that Tuera was trans LONG before I realized that I was. And, with the benefit of hindsight, it really does feel like my subconscious was desperately screaming at me to figure this out. It's almost funny, because I originally justified it to myself by being like "oh, I'm just filling in a plot hole, this doesn't have any deeper meanings that I should maybe examine."

See, I did eventually realize that she shouldn't have been the result of her father fucking a demon, that's just stupid and immature. No, it was a much better idea to have her be "designed" and "grown" instead of being born. Her "father," Venthrax, was an evil genius with designs on universal conquest, and would've created her to be a living weapon of that conquest. Except... why would he make her a girl? He'd be shoving her full of different genetics and demon blood and alien anatomy, but the base he'd be working with would naturally be a clone of himself, wouldn't it? Venthrax is a fucking asshole who obviously believes that he was the perfect organism, so he'd want his living weapon to be a copy of himself, but Better.

And Tuera didn't agree with that assessment. For more information, please read this:

Even funnier, at least to me: it was around that time that one of her abilities changed that further cemented the whole "you're definitely trans, dipshit" thing that I wouldn't realize until years later. Because at first, being "half-succubus," she was meant to be a prolific and skilled shapeshifter. But after I changed her backstory, the shapeshifting was slowly but eventually dropped in favor of her making portals and using teleportation spells. This is funny to me, because many, MANY years later, I'd come across this tweet:

The moment I saw that, I was just like "...yeah, that tracks."

Speaking of the teleportation, that's another thing that changed. Long before I finally realized Blizzard games aren't actually written well at all, causing me to lose all my interest in WoW, and long before I swore off Activision Blizzard King games entirely after Black February, Tuera just... left Azeroth. I kept writing stories about her hopping around the multiverse, but she was no longer tethered to the worlds of warcrafts.

It was around that time, writing these short little unconnected vignettes about her adventures across time and space, that I realized: she's much more interesting when she's not a supervillain.

Like, don't get me wrong, she's still not really a good person She's still very much selfish, and self-centered with, in her own words: "a casual tolerance for murder to rival even the hardest of hardcore dungeon crawlers," but... I mean, she's just not a dick for no reason anymore, y'know?

It's kinda funny, because she's still doing the same kind of things she used to do, just... for slightly different reasons, and I no longer consider them overtly villainous. For example: one of her first villain plots in the RP guild I was part of involved Tuera starting a cult to try and topple the Stormwind monarchy and take it over for herself. And now... she'd still want to destroy the monarchy, but just not to replace it. It'd be more out of a sense of a "fuck the nobles, death to all tyrants" kind of mindset.

To be honest, I think the main appeal of Tuera as a character for me is that she is more than a little bit of a wish fulfillment power fantasy. She can live unapologetically as herself without worry. She doesn't care about the opinions of anyone but herself. She lives without fear, because everyone who has ever tried to kill her has either failed, or it didn't stick. She's loud, she's brash, she stylish, and she does so many things simply for the aesthetic of it. When she sets her mind to something, she is completely unfettered in the pursuit of her goals, and will never stop. She's defied death, she killed gods, she's visited times and places I can't even imagine.

Tuera has complete autonomy over her own life. True freedom.

And I just... I compare that to my own life. The fact that, while I can admit I'm trans here on the internet, I'm so deathly terrified of trying to transition in real life because of... [vaguely gestures at everything] that I still haven't yet. And, to be honest, I probably won't get the chance before I die.

There is just so much about her that I wish I was.

But I'm not.

Ah well.

At least I can write my silly little stories, scratch out my silly sketches, and occasionally commission fantastic artwork from amazing people.

... wait, I just realized. I spent all this time talking about Tuera, but I still haven't gotten around to explaining what the fuck is up with that fake redacted document from the beginning.

Maybe I'll talk about D.I.C.E. another day.

[rainbowdaisy13]

Lol someone took a look at the metadata for the photoshoot that Taylor attached to her letter and found out that the pictures were all taken around Midnight of this March 27th, so this deal with Shamrock had been in the works for LONG before it was seemingly completed this March.

So all the articles last week about Scooter wanting to kiss up to Taylor and how he had a hand in making the deal with Shamrock possible in the first place when in reality the deal was actually sealed back in March were almost certainly approved by Taylor because it seems like Taylor thinks that Scooter fucking Braun of all people is apparently far more deserving of getting an image rehabilitation in her fandom than Karlie is, I guess 💀

[e-bird-online]

Web Design Trends Redefining the Digital Realm

The rise of immersive experiences: How 3D and virtual reality are revolutionizing web design. Beyond static visuals: Interactive design elements that engage users on a deeper level. The evolving role of AI in personalization: Tailoring websites to individual user preferences.

Get Free website designing course 2025 👈

Clear Purpose and Goals: Define the primary objective of the website. Ensure that every element on the site supports this goal.

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Responsive and Mobile-First Design: Ensure the website works well on all screen sizes. Start with mobile design as more users access websites on mobile devices.

5 Important ways to develop responsive website

Fast Load Time and Performance

Optimize images and code for faster loading.

Use caching, a good hosting provider, and efficient coding practices.

Strong SEO and Content Strategy

Use relevant keywords, proper headings, and metadata.

Create valuable, high-quality content that helps your audience and ranks well on search engines.

[notfinancialadvice]

# atty rambles about wordpress

this is a tag I am creating because I am chewing hard on this bone and it is a weird stress reliever

as is this blog in general

SHOPIFY BLOG VERSUS WORDPRESS STORE

WordPress Store

WordPress can host (reasonably well) an ecommerce store. Via WooCommerce (their main system), Shopify's "here is a button" system, and/or countless other things.

WordPress does blogging very, very, very effectively at a very, very low cost. Pick a host, press a few buttons, you have a wordpress blog. Depending on the host, but for almost all of them, 99.9% of your maintenance will be handled for you.

The issue is less "an issue" and more "reality" in that a WordPress store is not a store, and so between 50% - 95% of the "store mechanics" are not in the box -- they have to be built, designed, written, maintained.

"Thank you for your order!" pages -- etc. there are ten billion tiny gears to a shop -- all have to be built. Maintained. Etc.

Shopify Blog

Shopify can handle the store mechanics very well. If your needs are specific and/or huge, you'll probably struggle, but to be blunt, at that level you are a medium-sized business (my opinion) and should be looking into a more bespoke system anyway. Either using Shopify as a backbone and/or something unique.

I am explicitly talking about thousands of products and hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.

If you are not at that level, it (probably) can do everything (almost everything) you need it to do for somewhere between a few hundred and several hundred dollars very well-to-extremely-well.

Except. Blogging.

There is a limit of authors to users on your account, you cannot easily access or sort backend metadata (but you can create it, I say, interestingly enough, I say, angerily).

Tags, no categories, also difficult to sort.

Your ability to sort tags is brutally elementary. As is designing specific templates (tags, author, etc.)

It is an extremely weak system.

I think this is one of the reasons why art shops tend to be... difficult... to build and maintain.

Before there was social media (fuck I'm getting gray) there were blogs and webrings -- these still exist of course but not nearly in scope or scale.

Social media is "blog, public, in a forum" -- so it allows art shops etc. to replace / augment (let's be honest... replace) blogging, which has allowed ecommerce platforms the ability to ignore blogging as a platform to construct and flesh out.

My suggestion is WordPress (or someone else) replace Shopify's blogging system with a native structure

I would be willing to pay a huge chunk of cash for this. I hate Shopify's blogging system, it is so weak. I do not want to maintain a billion things on my own, so I am not interested in using blog-shop-structure.

I am fleshing out the Post's blog on Shopify's system anyway because it is the best possible of uncomfortable choices.

I am aware of all of the Shopify blogging apps. They are paint on a house that needs to be rebuilt.

[thoughtportal]

Proton, the company behind the eponymous email provider Proton Mail, has won itself a loyal fanbase of dissidents, investigative journalists, and others skeptical of the prying eyes of government or Big Tech. Headquartered in Switzerland, the service describes itself as “a neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom.”

So it came as a surprise last month when Proton CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party in a post on X, declaring that “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.” When the tweet went viral, Proton’s official Reddit account posted a now-deleted comment stating that “Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.”

Yen further claimed that the post had been an “internal miscommunication,” later also writing that Proton is “politically neutral.”

He followed it up with a longer statement explaining that “while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.” Yen didn’t specifically address whether the deleted post had constituted opinion or analysis.

In response to a request for comment, Proton reiterated the claim that it is a “politically neutral organization,” then went on to state that “regardless of one’s views about the wider Republication platform, if you agree that action is needed on antitrust then the appointment of Gail Slater is a positive thing,” referring to President Donald Trump’s choice to head the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Proton further stated that “Big Tech CEOs are tripping over themselves to kiss the ring precisely because Trump represents an unprecedented challenge to their monopolistic dominance.”

When Governments Ask for Data

Yen has repeatedly described Proton as being a “privacy-first” company, and its homepage touts that “With Proton, your data belongs to you, not tech companies, governments, or hackers.” However, Proton has in the past revealed user information to authorities. For instance, Proton previously handed over an IP address at the request of French authorities made via Europol to Swiss police. Yen wrote a Twitter post at the time, stating, “Proton must comply with Swiss law. As soon as a crime is committed, privacy protections can be suspended and we’re required by Swiss law to answer requests from Swiss authorities.”

Proton’s information for law enforcement page states that it requires a copy of a “police report or court order,” albeit either a foreign or domestic one. For its part, Proton told The Intercept that “Proton does not comply with US subpoenas, it doesn’t matter if it’s Biden or Trump in power.”

While Proton states that it “cannot read any of your messages or hand them over to third parties,” the same doesn’t apply to email subjects; sender or recipient names and email addresses; the time a message was sent; or other information in the “header” section of email messages. Proton explicitly states that “if served with a valid Swiss court order, we do have the ability to turn over the subjects of your messages.”

Under Trump’s previous term, the Department of Justice sought to clandestinely obtain “non-content” communications records, including phone and email records, of reporters at a variety of news outlets such as CNN and the New York Times. While the subject of an email is considered “content,” non-content records include metadata such as the date and time a message was sent, as well as the sender and recipient of an email.

We’re independent of corporate interests — and powered by members. Join us.

Become a member

The prior behavior of a Trump-led DOJ, coupled with the praise and efforts by tech CEOs to curry favor with the Trump camp, has raised the question of how amenable the industry will be to data requests from the incoming administration. It’s a particularly important question for the types of users who have flocked to Proton — the kind fearful of exposing sensitive sources or persecuted individuals to state surveillance. (The Intercept uses Proton Mail as its email provider.)

“Platforms inherently occupy a position of trust because we want them to have users’ backs when the government comes knocking for data,” said Andrew Crocker, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s surveillance litigation director, which has published an annual “Who Has Your Back?” reports, which analyzed companies’ acquiescence to government requests for user data.

“It’s reasonable to worry that tech companies’ backbone for protecting users in this way might soften when they get too politically involved with any one administration,” Crocker said.