#blacklist stream ad to not see these posts!

[sanitymakesposts]

Your troubles are lesser on the moon due to the lack of gravity

Join myself, @jame7t , @cottoncandylesbo , and @cryptotheism tonight at 7 pm EST for four humans' best alien impersonation! we're gonna do whatever we want to on the moon, the least political celestial body! [All talk of any election, aside from moon elections, will be banned] [Anyone mentioning any humanoid names will be put in the Gleebtrax]

[catzgam3rz]

I’m reaching the end of the first arc of egg streams like when they keep saying the dragon is going to be showing up and the eggs are gonna go? (End of April I’m currently on April 29th of Philza’s POV)

AND ITS REALLY WEIRD BECAUSE IVE SEEN THE EGGS IN RECENT CLIPS??? BUT I DONT THINK I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS HERE WHICH IS INTERESTING BECAUSE I KNOW I SAW PEOPLE SAD THE EGGS WERE LEAVING SOON AT THE TIME???

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

Pinned FAQ

How do I request a card?

You can request up to 3 cards for free during openaskbox events! During those, the /ask inbox opens up for a few hours, during which I try to write as many as I can live on twitch and post them on tumblr.

After the event is over and I close that inbox, there are still a BUNCH of leftover requests. This is how I fill the daily content queue, I use those up til it's empty again and then run another openaskbox.

On Sundays at 3pm EST I write all 28 cards due to go up for the week from that pool of leftover asks live on twitch and then queue them to go up after stream

What if I don't wanna wait?

If you'd like to throw a bit of cash around instead of waiting, you can buy via the etsy listing or you can tune in to those^ Saturday livestreams, there's a variety of ways to donate to get cards written for you on the spot

How do I buy the card I've requested?

The etsy listing is available here! Please remember to include in the notes of the purchase which card(s) you want to buy. If you'd like me to bundle together all the cards you've requested over a period of a few years, dm me here on the blog and I can quote you on a cheaper bundle price

Why did you answer all those asks, it messed up my dash?

Sorry about that! So to keep all of that ^ organized, at the end of the month, I answer about 112-140 leftover asks in order to record them to a proper "to-write document"

It helps me keep organized, it allows me to easily search for spelling issues, and it gets a few eyeballs on the request in case someone tries to slip an obscure slur into their request that I'm not cool with writing (it has happened)

Lots of the regulars are used to this dash nonsense, but there are folks who want to avoid it entirely. If you're on mobile I'd just recommend unfollowing for a while, but if you're on desktop, you can blacklist the tag "added to notepad" and go to xkit to tick the "fully hide blocked tags" option so it clears up your dash

Wait I thought requests were closed, why can I still send things?

That's because requests use /ask, but /submit is always open because it's for YOUR calligraphy, pet photos, fanart of man... etc. Requests are NOT open when it's not openaskbox day but feel free to send me cool shit YOU made anytime

Wait you have a twitch, do you do anything other than calligraphy?

I try! my schedule at work (restaurant) varies week to week so I try my best to stream whenever I've got free time to, nothing's really planned out though

What are your regular writing tools and paper?

I mainly just use speedball nibs, specifically the c-series (c-0 through c-4) because they're angled flat nibs that let me do most blackletter hands I write. I have a supply of leonardt thin tips for detailing and illustrating

As for paper, the cards you see on the daily are on plain index cue cards I buy from staples. When commissioned/doing larger pieces, I work with a variety of paper, including a 32 lb xerox paper that has juuuust a perfect amount of lamination that avoids ink feathering, black paper that I bought a hundred sheets of in 2019 and I no longer remember the label, and a BOATLOAD of southworth's ivory parchment paper at both 32 and 64 lb weights.

[the-sleepy-archivist]

Favorite Firefox Extensions

Firefox is a very extensible browser - through a combinations of addons and userscripts you can make it behave just about any way you want. The best part is, they're all free. Here are some of my favorites.

Note: if you have an Android device, check out my post about Firefox for Android's new extended support for addons!

Note: if you have an Apple device, check out my favorite Safari extensions here!

Last updated June 2024 (fixed link for Bypass Paywalls Clean).

Index:

uBlock Origin

Tab Session Manager

Sauron

Bypass Paywalls Clean

Auto Tab Discard

Video DownloadHelper

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

TWP - Translate Web Pages

UnTrap - YouTube Customizer

Indie Wiki Buddy

Cookie Auto Delete

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

LibraryExtension

uBlock Origin

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

This is the first addon I install on any new Firefox browser. It's an adblocker, but at its core it can remove pretty much any HTML element from a website, and it comes with pre-configured lists for removing everything from ads to cookie banners to those annoying popups that ask you to sign up for email newsletters.

Tab Session Manager

Have you ever accidentally lost all your open browser tabs due to a computer update, or even just accidentally closing Firefox? With this addon you no longer have to worry about that - it automatically saves your open tabs and windows every time the browser closes, and autosaves a restore point of tabs every few minutes in case the browser crashes unexpectedly. Opening all your previous tabs and windows is a one-click deal.

Sauron

Ever wished your favorite website had a dark mode? With Sauron, now it can! Sauron attempts to intelligently figure out how to edit the color scheme of the web page (including text) to make it dark-mode friendly. It preserves the original color of images, but dims them so that they don't blind you. You can disable image dimming or dark mode on a site by site basis too. It's not perfect since it is making guesses about which colors to change, but it goes a long way toward making the internet an enjoyable place for me.

Bypass Paywalls Clean

This addon removes paywalls from hundreds of news websites around the world or adds links to open the article in a wrapper that provides the article text (like the Internet Archive etc.)

Auto Tab Discard

Ever wanted to keep a tab open for later use, but you notice the browser getting slower and slower the more tabs you have open? Auto Tab Discard will automatically "hibernate" tabs that you haven't used in a while so that they use less resources on your computer. It's smart enough not to hibernate pages that are playing media (like YouTube) or that have forms you haven't submitted yet (like job applications). You can customize how fast it puts tabs to sleep too and exclude certain websites from hibernating at all.

Video DownloadHelper

This addon can download streaming videos from most modern (HTML5) websites, and even finds soft subtitles that accompany the stream and downloads those too. Just browse to the webpage that has the video on it, click the icon in the Firefox toolbar, and select the video you want to download and click "Quick Download". For YouTube I would recommend using a YT downloader website (like KeepVid) to download the video directly, but Video DownloadHelper really shines for websites that aren't popular enough to have dedicated downloader websites like that. I've used it download videos from a Japanese film festival streaming portal, news websites, etc.

Highlight or Hide Search Engine Results

This addon allows you to blacklist websites and completely remove them from Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo search results. Don't want to see image search results from AI websites? Blacklist them. Searching for tech support advice and getting frustrated by all the auto-generated junk websites that stuff themselves full of SEO terms to jump to the top of the search results without actually providing any information at all? Blacklist them so they don't come up in your next search. Conversely, you can also whitelist websites that you know and trust so that if they ever come up in future search results, they'll be highlighted with a color of your choosing for visibility.

TWP - Translate Web Pages

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Does what it says on the tin: auto-detects a website's language and provides a button that can translate it to a language of your choosing. You can also just select individual text on the page and translate just that. Note that this sends whatever text you translate to the servers of your selected translation service (Google, Bing, Yandex, or DeepL), so keep in mind the privacy implications if you don't want your IP address associated with having read that text.

Edit: As of version 118, Firefox now has the ability to translate text locally on your computer, without needing to send it to a cloud service. You can enable this in Settings -> Translation -> Install languages for offline translation. Note that at this time (May 2024), 18 (mostly European) languages are supported. More info here.

UnTrap for YouTube

(compatible with Firefox for Android and they have a Safari for iOS extension too)

This addon lets you tweak the YouTube interface and hide anything you don't want to see. For instance, I hide all the "recommended" videos that come up when you search YT now. They have nothing to do with your search, so they're essentially just ads YT puts in your search results. I also hide Explore, Trending, More from YouTube, and Shorts sections, but you can customize it to fit your preferences.

Note: depending on the particular set of tweaks you want to make to YouTube, you may prefer to use YouTube Search Fixer instead. User preference.

Indie Wiki Buddy

I loathe Fandom.com wiki sites - they are cluttered and filled with ads and autoplaying videos that follow you down the page as you scroll. The organization is also hostile - if a community tries to leave their platform and bring their content to a new wiki hoster, Fandom bans them from the platform and reverts all their deletions/changes. Indie Wiki Buddy attempts to find an independent alternative for the wiki you're trying to browse and automatically redirects you to it, and if one doesn't exist, it will redirect you to a proxy site like antifandom or breezewiki that shows the Fandom content but removes all ads/videos/background images so you can actually, you know. READ it.

Cookie Auto Delete

(compatible with Firefox for Android)

Websites store "cookies" - little text files with info about you - on your computer as you browse so they can track you as you browse the internet. This addon automatically deletes cookies from a website a short while after you close the last tab you had open for that site. You can customize how long it waits before clearing cookies too. Note that this can sign you out of many websites, so you can whitelist any site you don't want cookies cleared for.

ShopSuey - Get Rid of Ads on Amazon and Ebay

Removes the ads/recommended products that clutter up Amazon and Ebay search results and product pages.

LibraryExtension

This fantastic addon recognizes when you are viewing a book on many popular websites and can automatically check whether that book is available in any of the library systems or subscription services you have access to, including how many copies your library(ies) have and how many are currently checked out. The best part is it shows the availability for physical books, ebooks, AND audiobooks at supported libraries. The extension currently supports libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, but it also supports some global repositories like the Internet Archive and subscription services like NLS Bard for the blind and print disabled, Kobo Plus, Libro.fm, Anyplay.fm, Bookmate, and Everand. Great extension for people trying to support their local library and also save money.

Filtering+ for Tumblr

This addon lets you add tags or phrases to your tumblr tag filters with two clicks, without leaving the dashboard. I've been asking Tumblr for this tag filtering behavior on their mobile apps (i.e. press and hold a tag to get a filter option) for at least a year now in asks and surveys, without ever stopping to see if someone had already implemented this on desktop. More fool me. This addon is from the author of XKit Rewritten. Note that the right-click tag filtering only works on the dashboard; it will not appear if you are on someone's blog. Right-clicking selected text to filter the phrase works everywhere based on my testing.

[dongoverlord]

so weird how ppl talk abt supporting artists but when those artists start getting sponsors or make art that's more marketable to try and stabilize their income they're suddenly sellouts and everyone starts installing extensions to blacklist them like?? lmfao go pay our bills if you want weird authentic art forever from a specific artist

and yea it's annoying when an artist starts making more boring main stream art but. alot of us make that type of art alongside our weird less marketable art! I've been trying to get back into spending more time on my pieces and doing art for myself, however I also have to pay off my student loans and pay for gas, groceries, etc.

I just find it weird how naive ppl are abt creatives in general. it IS annoying having sponsor sections in every video or ppl putting ads in their photo posts or constantly re-sharing shop stuff, but u know what'd be even more annoying? having to go hungry bc u wanna appear more "authentic" and less of a "sellout".

idk. I'm just tired of working jobs I hate and putting off art as a full time career. it takes alot of sacrifice so seeing complaints from ppl who don't understand being an artist isn't just living out of ur car and looking sad or whatever outdated stereotype they have abt independent artists is annoying lowkey

[mariacallous]

When the Egyptian government shut down the internet in 2011 to give itself cover to crush a popular protest movement, it was Nora Younis who got the word out. Younis, then a journalist with daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, found a working internet connection at the InterContinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel that overlooked Tahrir Square, the heart of the protests. From the balcony, she filmed as protesters were shot and run down with armored vehicles, posting the footage to the newspaper’s website, where it was picked up by global media.

In 2016, with Egypt having slid back into the authoritarianism that prompted the uprising, Younis launched her own media platform, Al-Manassa, which combined citizen journalism with investigative reporting. The following year, Almanassa.com suddenly disappeared from the Egyptian internet, along with a handful of other independent publications. It was still available overseas, but domestic users couldn’t see it. Younis’ team moved their site to a new domain. That, too, was rapidly blocked, so they moved again and were blocked again. After three years and more than a dozen migrations to new domains and subdomains, they asked for help from the Swedish digital forensics nonprofit Qurium, which figured out how the blocks were being implemented—using a network management tool provided by a Canadian tech company called Sandvine.

Sandvine is well known in digital rights circles, but unlike leading villains of the spyware world such as NSO Group or Candiru, it’s often floated below the eyeline of lawmakers and regulators. The company, owned by the private equity group Francisco Partners, mainly sells above-board technology to internet service providers and telecom companies to help them run their networks. But it has often sold that technology to regimes that have abused it, using it to censor, shut down, and surveil activists, journalists, and political opponents.

On Monday, after years of lobbying from digital rights activists, the US Department of Commerce added Sandvine to its Entity List, effectively blacklisting it from doing business with American partners. The department said that the company’s technology was “used in mass-web monitoring and censorship” in Egypt, “contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” Digital rights activists say it’s a major victory because it shows that companies can’t avoid responsibility when they sell potentially dangerous products to clients who are likely to abuse them.

“Better late than never,” Tord Lundström, Qurium’s technical director, says. “Sandvine is a shameless example of how technology is not neutral when seeking profit at all costs.”

”We are aware of the action announced by the US Commerce Department, and we’re working closely with government officials to understand, address, and resolve their concerns,” says Sandvine spokesperson Susana Schwartz. “Sandvine solutions help provide a reliable and safe internet, and we take allegations of misuse very seriously.”

Sandvine’s flagship product is deep packet inspection, or DPI, a common tool used by ISPs and telecom companies to monitor traffic and prioritize certain types of content. DPI lets network administrators see what’s in a packet of data flowing on the network in real time, so it can intercept or divert it. It can be used, for example, to give priority to traffic from streaming services over static web pages or downloads, so that users don’t see glitches in their streams. It has been used in some countries to filter out child sexual abuse images.

But the technology can also be used to divert traffic away from sites or social media platforms and into dead ends, effectively censoring them. It’s the main technology used by Roskomnadzor, the Russian state censor, to shut off or throttle sites the government has banned.

“On paper, it’s technology that has legitimate aims, but it can be abused on a mass scale if it’s given to the wrong hands,” says Marwa Fatafta, Middle East and North Africa policy and advocacy director at digital rights group Access Now, which has been lobbying the US government to take action against Sandvine. “If you’re selling your technology to repressive governments that you know have a dismal record of human rights, you know that your technology will end up being abused.”

This dual use has made authoritarian governments enthusiastic adopters of DPI. In 2017, according to Bloomberg and Qurium, Sandvine was among the tools used by the government in Azerbaijan to black out livestreaming services and social media sites during anti-corruption protests, and to later block access to a major opposition newspaper.

In 2018, the Canadian cybersecurity research center Citizen Lab found that Sandvine’s tools had been used to deploy “nation-state spyware” onto users’ devices in Syria and Turkey.

In 2020, Sandvine’s DPI tool was used to shut down the internet during anti-government protests in Belarus. The outcry that followed led to the company canceling its contract with the government in Minsk. However, Sandvine apparently continued to seek contracts in places that routinely censor the internet. In 2022, a Bloomberg investigation found that the company had been pursuing business in Russia, where the government has been rolling out a massive system of decentralized censorship, often using DPI. Sandvine has reportedly now largely pulled out of the Russian market after sanctions were imposed on the country following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In Egypt, Sandvine has provided a key tool in the government’s attempt to strangle independent voices, allegedly helping to block hundreds of sites, including Al-Manassa. The impact has been devastating for independent sites, Younis says. The constant disruption has cut them off from audiences and revenue streams, making it hard to sustain themselves financially. Many independent media outlets have shut down.

“This, of course, has definitely had a lot of impact on people’s awareness in access to information and their ability to hold officials accountable,” Younis says. “There are parliamentary elections, presidential elections—many times where maybe things would have been different if there was free access to information.”

The technical censorship is only part of the Egyptian government’s far broader crackdown on independent media and political opponents, which includes physical and legal intimidation. But Younis, like others, thought that the involvement of a Western tech company meant that she might have an avenue to seek redress. Two years ago, she started speaking with rights groups in Canada and the US to try to figure out whether she could sue Sandvine, which has never responded to any of her requests to speak. She was advised against it, on the grounds that she could open herself up to expensive counter-litigation. She lobbied Canadian diplomats, who were sympathetic but said they couldn’t help. “Their heart’s in the right place, but they say that the laws in Canada don’t work like that,” she says.

This speaks to the difficulty in regulating so-called dual-use technologies—tools whose danger depends on the context in which they’re deployed. In the US and European Union, lawmakers have begun to expand older restrictions covering dual-use technologies that could be used as, or to build, weapons to cover surveillance and censorship. But the process has been slow. NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware has been implicated in the surveillance of hundreds of human rights activists, journalists, and politicians all over the world, was added to the Entity List only in late 2021, years after the scandal broke.

Victims of the censorship tools, including Younis, had little hope that Sandvine would be sanctioned, and Monday’s announcement took them by surprise. (Qurium’s Lundström’s first response via Signal on Tuesday morning was simply: “Oh fucking yeah.”)

Being added to the Entity List means that any American company that wants to work with Sandvine will need to seek a special license. “It is essentially a ban,” says Natalia Krapiva, tech legal counsel at Access Now. “There is a presumption that [licenses] will not be approved.”

That means Sandvine could struggle to access US technology services and infrastructure.

“It’s a big deal for companies to be going and asking for a license to do business with a company that the US government says represents a risk to our national security interests and foreign policy,” Krapiva says.

The Department of Commerce’s decision is, she adds, “hugely significant. It is a huge victory for all of us: civil society, victims of this technology, and the regimes that they were supplying into. … [Sandvine] could have stuck with sort of normal, civilian purposes. Instead, they chose to sell to dictators and facilitate censorship and repression. And so finally, they paid some price.”

[silverhand]

I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.

This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.

Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.

Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.

Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).

Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).

I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.

It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

[clownkiwi]

Welcome to my channel!

Here's how you can catch my streams on my Tumblr! (As always, I'd love your support whenever you stop by my channel <3)

(NOTE: when i queue up ads for my stream every 15-30 minutes while i'm live, they're all tagged "#stream queue", if you don't wanna see them spammed all over you dash, you can blacklist the tag. i would still appreciate sharing my streams tho!!)

And here's the schedule for the next upcoming streams! (will be updated when I post the schedule on Discord):

???: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Part 4), Koudelka (Part 3)

Current Series Streams: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Part 4) & Koudelka (Part 3)

Future Streams: ?

I should be live anytime between 5-9pm EST!!

Also, feel free to share my streams anyway possible!! Clips, through word of mouth, anyway works!!

My Discord Server (16+, you just need to leave an intro & you'll be let into the rest of the server)

Missed my past streams? Check out my VODs archive, with organized playlists!! Always updates within 24-72 hours of a stream.

[cannaqueers]

Through the pandemic, OnlyFans took over the online adult entertainment world to become a billion-dollar top dog, projected to earn five times more net revenue in 2022 than in 2020. As OnlyFans’ business grew, content creators on rival platforms complained that social media sites like Facebook and Instagram were blocking their content but seemingly didn’t block OnlyFans with the same fervor, creating an unfair advantage. OnlyFans' mounting success amid every other platform's demise seemed to underscore its mysterious edge.

As adult entertainers outside of OnlyFans’ content stream looked for answers to their declining revenue, they realized that Meta had not only allegedly targeted their accounts to be banned for posting supposedly inappropriate content but seemingly also for suspected terrorist activity. The more they dug into why they had been branded as terrorists, the more they suspected that OnlyFans paid Meta to put the mark on their heads—resulting in account bans that went past Facebook and Instagram and spanned popular social media apps across the Internet.

Now, Meta has been hit with multiple class action lawsuits alleging that senior executives at Meta accepted bribes from OnlyFans to shadow-ban competing adult entertainers by placing them on a "terrorist blacklist." Meta claims the suspected scheme is “highly implausible,” and that it's more likely that OnlyFans beat its rivals in the market through successful strategic moves, like partnering with celebrities. However, lawyers representing three adult entertainers suing Meta say the owner of Facebook and Instagram will likely have to hand over documents to prove it.

Meta and its legal team did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment, but in their motion to dismiss, Meta says that even if “a vast and sophisticated scheme involving manipulation of automated filtering and blocking systems” was launched by Meta employees, Meta would not be liable. As a publisher, Meta says it is protected by the First Amendment and the Communications Decency Act to moderate content created by adult entertainment performers how it sees fit. The tech company also says it would be against Meta’s interests to manipulate algorithms to drive users off Facebook or Instagram to OnlyFans.

Fenix International Limited owns OnlyFans and also filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the lawsuit had no merits and that OnlyFans has the same protected rights as a publisher as Meta. Neither Fenix nor its legal team immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment.

A spokesperson for the legal team representing the adult entertainers, Millberg, provided documents filed last week in response to both companies' motions to dismiss, which Millberg considers “meritless.” They say that the First Amendment and CDA protections cited by Meta don’t apply, because plaintiffs aren’t suing over their content being blocked, but over allegations that the companies engaged in unfair business practices and “a scheme to misuse a terrorist blacklist.”

Rather than dismiss their complaint, plaintiffs asked the judge to reject the motions, which by law would ordinarily prevent discovery in the case, or if the judge is persuaded by the motions to dismiss, to allow for limited discovery before deciding. A Millberg spokesperson says this is just the start of a long legal process, and they expect that their request for discovery will be granted. That would mean that Meta and OnlyFans would have to share evidence to disprove the claim, which as of yet, neither has.

It’s likely that any judgment on the companies’ motions to dismiss will influence how the companies defend against other lawsuits. For the Millberg class action lawsuit, a hearing is scheduled in the Northern District of California on September 8. The judge will be William Alsap, who some may recall in 2014 received media attention for siding with a woman who contested the federal government’s no-fly policy and recommended a process of correcting mistakes, so that the US is not labeling people as terrorists who aren’t. Adult entertainers are hoping that he’ll be equally sympathetic in helping them to remove that unearned label.

What is this terrorist watch list?

It’s not just adult entertainers suing. Rival adult entertainment platforms, FanCentro and JustFor.Fans, are also suing, claiming that their social media traffic dropped so dramatically that “it could not have been the result of filtering by human reviewers.” Instead, they allege that Fenix relied on a “secret Hong Kong subsidiary into offshore Philippines bank accounts set up by the crooked Meta employees” to pay off Meta and tank its rivals’ traffic.

To achieve maximum effect in its alleged mission to delete rival adult content from the Internet, Fenix allegedly asked Meta to add 21,000 names and social media accounts to a terrorist blacklist that would ensure their content wouldn’t be displayed on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) was co-founded in 2017 by owners of major social media platforms and other companies “to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms.” Whenever a content moderation system flags an account on one platform, a digital fingerprint called a hash is shared with all the other platforms so that the image, video, or post won’t show up anywhere.

Critics, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have said the practice limits users’ rights to free expression across the Internet any time a post gets mistakenly flagged, with little recourse to get off the terrorist list, or even confirm if they're on it. The GIFCT told the BBC that it continually works to “enhance transparency and oversight of the GIFCT hash-sharing database” by extensively engaging with stakeholders.

GIFCT did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. The Millberg legal team says that it wants to begin discovery in September by asking Meta and GIFCT to share records that would either prove or disprove whether 21,000 Instagram accounts were improperly branded as terrorists.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

I have epilepsy, and one bad seizure can kill me. My husband has had to resuscitate me TWICE.

When Riverdance was doing their final tour, I saved money for MONTHS to see them live. I checked everywhere I could to find out if they use strobe lights, and found nothing. Yay! It's safe! Got my ticket and waited. Day of, I went to the theater and...there's a piece of printer paper with 16 pt font on the door stating their are strobe lights.

I had paid for the ticket months prior. The theater refused to give me refund and suggest I just cover my eyes. So I took my seat, and asked the woman next to me if she would mind letting me know when the strobe lights stopped. It was winter, so I used my coat to periodically cover my eyes, and this woman let me know when it was safe.

Why tf did they need strobe lights? Why wasn't there any warnings? If no sign had been posted, I wouldn't have been prepared! I could have DIED!!!

I haven't been to a movie theater in years. I saw the second Hunger Games film in theaters and had a seizure. Prior to that, the third Harry Potter film...and had a seizure.

Streaming new releases during lockdown was the only time I didn't have to blacklist films. No need to avoid spoilers. All the lights on, subtitles on, ability to take frequent breaks. Fucking amazing.

The first Spiderverse film required I be in a separate room for the last half hour or so because it was all strobe lights. I can't watch animated stuff in general because they tend to get really flashy, especially new stuff.

I can't stream most TV shows because of the dangerous ads. I can't watch YouTube anywhere but my PC because I have to use an ad blocker. No music videos because they all seem to be using strobes now.

There need to be laws requiring this shit be limited, that warnings be put up for at least 30 seconds before any music video, show, etc if they have flashy effects, and ads cannot have strobes or flashy fuckery.

full offence but it should be illegal to use flashing or strobing images in adverts like straight up if a company has paid to force strobing shit in front of people then they have paid to directly hurt and potentially kill disabled people and whatever company they paid was fine with it. go to fucking jail and rot there.

[sanitymakesposts]

4PM EST - SUNDAY, MAY 5TH, 2024

Join myself and @jame7t with special guests @cottoncandylesbo and @cryptotheism as we stream to raise money for the American Heart Association! While the contents of the stream may still be a mystery, the cast lineup is certainly full of STARs! Come check a look and help us get coin for a great cause!

[berlinini]

Looks like there's more of a media blackout for AFHF - a game-changer festival! - than for his first livestream concert. There's really nothing in terms of coverage. Why did I think that his association with BMG would help him out? I guess he still has SJPR (an agency that really must be in the back pocket of Louis' nemeses)

Yeah, what the AFHF really showed is that nothing has changed in term of promotional support (to the exception of the sponsored ads by Veeps and Live Nation but that's because they're chasing big bucks). What did we get? An article in CelebMix, praising Matt Vines. Please 😭. Nothing about a free festival with 8,000 people, but we get a write up because Louis donated 4K to a GoFundMe? Bilk got press out of the festival - but Louis, who curated it, did not? When is Benji Madden going to be quoted about the AFH livestream in a music publication like he was for Liam's?

It doesn't take a PhD to understand that Louis is heavily blacklisted by the media. Is SJPR trying to work around that or is it simply impossible to do so?

At this point, it's clear for me that as long as LTHQ is still in the picture, sitting on their asses at the pub, nothing's gonna change. Ok, if we say Louis is blacklisted, with the following his has on social media, he could work around it. However, there is absolutely no strategy put in place by his team to exploit that. There would be so many ways to "milk" the festival - through Instagram posts, posting videos on YouTube, TikTok, etc. Stuff that would bring engagement from fans and could be shared to extend the fanbase. Yet, the AFHF twitter account is dead and Louis just dipped after his thank you tweets - just like in December.

I mean, if Louis produced the doc + concert film, I don't understand what's stopping him for fully putting it on YouTube - he owns the rights. Unless it's going on streaming/ VOD platforms (which I highly doubt), then the whole thing was just made to be broadcasted once? And we don't even have the ticket sale numbers? That seems like a lot of energy for little rewards.

As for BMG, they are not yet involved with Louis' career - he has to release music through them first. So we wait and see what the promo for his next single will be...

But in conclusion, to quote Shakespeare again...“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (a poetic way of saying things are fucked up).

Faith in the future, I guess?

[cupidlakes]

bulk answering some asks under the cut!!

ah yeah, this is a minor personal pet peeve but i never let it seriously bother me like, i think it’s fine to move onto new cc’s i don’t watch a lot of the cc’s that got me into mcyt all those years ago (cube smp/mcsg era anyone?) but i don’t think that means i’ve developed taste or anything shit happens and you just move on from people/interests it’s natural! yeah it’s kinda asshole-y to imply george is nothing but a gateway creator but if ppl genuinely move on to find new mcyters through him or anyone else on the dteam/dsmp that’s cool :) it does feel like devaluing him as a cc when people are snarky abt it like that but what can you do? if you don’t appreciate what he’s putting out then other ppl do and that’s all that matters, have fun with your new interest

thank you so much this is the sweetest!! You are so kind <333 i’m comfy i’m comfy :)

wow this is interesting!! but i have nothing to say i don’t necessarily agree with putting someone’s looks on the highest pedestal either talking abt objectives n stuff (personal taste is a thing) i think being like you’re attractive to me is enough but yeah i really don’t want to be so shallow abt things even talking abt someone’s appearance so candidly like this makes me uncomfortable (i get what you mean though<3) at the end of the day i like george for so much more than his face i always have!! i’ve been around since pre-facecam streams and i think him being cute and really growing into his confidence is an added bonus to all the lovely + funny in my eyes but yeah big vouch for wondering what the hell people think of “average” looking people omg... genuinely squicks me out to label and judge anyone’s appearance it’s just in poor taste to me and i don’t see why it’s permissible with george

sorry for being a bitch genuinely i’m like crying usually i just complain in private when stuff annoys me honestly i do but this is still my blog and if tagged accordingly (check my blacklist if you wish to avoid all future discourse-y stuff ^^) i can Complain abt people being strange

ahh no seriously vouch for having had a bad day i’m actually dead tired responding to all of these rn i had an awkward dinner at someone else’s place and a horrible day at work my social battery is so low so yeah same same. we’re in this together!! i think part of the reason i was so snippy and bothered is because the weight of existence has been extra heavy today the thread of comments also threw me off big time because the post itself was kinda eh. i was like whatever this is kinda rude but i’ve seen this song and dance but ppl genuinely ripping into george/george fans and being so assumptive and reductive? jesus it felt bizarre to read, didn’t appreciate it at all it felt very dehumanising

but i relate to all your thoughts and feelings i’m mlm so i am like. genuinely attracted to him (which btw my attraction took a lot to navigate if anyone was wondering) but most of all i just agree that he is really charming to me? that’s the perfect word i think, the way he operates and moves and talks so animatedly it’s just fun to see someone bursting with life and energy, george facecam streams are a treat to see him not only earnestly enjoy himself but play up to the camera and entertain using his full range!! he’s genuinely one of if not my favourite cc for so many reasons, he is consistently entertaining and a joy to watch

and ahhh that’s very sweet thank you thank you if literally anything i post on my silly blog puts a smile on anyone’s faces that means so much to me always <33 happiness and kindness are important to me and i always wanna share in that as much as i can especially in my interests thank you again and i do hope you’re having a better day! :]

[shoezuki]

This is a post on the cheating accusations around dream mostly surrounding his response video.

If you don’t want to see this or any of these posts then blacklist the tag #discourse

SO I’ve been doing a lot of digging into what dream has said in his response to Geosquare’s original video and report, which was compiled and conducted by the Minecraft Java mods on speedrun.com. 

I won’t talk about that original report in detail, but basically: the mods came to the conclusion that Dream had a 1 in 7.5 trillion chance of getting the pearl bartering rates and the blaze drop odds that he did within the 6 streams he did. As in, someone would need that luck to replicate what dream got. Therefore, he cheated. 

I’m going to put this into a sort of ‘point form’ in according to topic, attempting to put it in chronological order.

Dream’s Initial Tweets

Ok so first like. these are bad. these tweets are what he said (on twitter, excluding in the speedrunning discord) directly after the video was Uploaded to Geo’s channel. 

worth noting he did apologize later, although i wanted to talk about these two instances so i felt the need to include it. 

there’s a lot of interesting wording in the apology tweet itself too. I personally find that when he apologizes he tends to still be very subtextually angry in them with the tone, but more specifically. where he says ‘although i have reason to be upset’, that’s kinda weak and really unneeded. Alongside the ‘intense criticism’, it reads as him trying to say he’s still in the right. kind of like “im sorry i was rude even though I had reason to be rude’. Its an apology sure but he’s not saying sorry for how he really reacted; its justified to him.

Dream’s Response Video

Dream posted a response on his side channel DreamXD on the 22nd, along with the report he had a supposed astrophysicist conduct. I’m going to talk about the report separately from the video for reasons I’ll explain. 

Frankly, the video doesn’t really summarize or explain the report in a meaningful way. At most, it takes some points from it but tends to twist the numbers around, misunderstand the probability and math, and also what the report itself concludes. 

Essentially, dream’s video insists that the numbers found by the mods are wrong and therefore he didn’t cheat at all, yet the report concludes that the numbers found by the mods weren’t entirely accurate, however they’re still extremely unlikely. This is also all under the assumption that the report is entirely correct (ill say how its not next)

His first point is that only his 1.16 run (that was at 5th place two months ago, would have now been 16th) was deemed cheated. This is true; the mods have said that he isnt banned outright and theres no reason to question the legitimacy of his 1.15 runs. 

He also concludes that Geo’s statement that Dream didn’t cooperate with them, and that he deleted 1.16 mod folders, was false. This one is a little more complicated. It could more be chalked up to a miscommunication, although it’s relevant. Geosquare posted screenshots of the specific conversation they had:

Essentially it wasn’t entirely clear, i can understand how geo and the mods interpreted it in such a way. Altho April added in a quote retweet thread that dream didn’t supply the folder she asked for, so he didn’t supply everything they asked for like he states in the video

Essentially: yeah, misleading and weird on both ends. I dont think this is really anything quantifiable, although dream talked about this in the video heavily. 

Out of this though, Geo DID correct himself in the description of the mods’ video. Dream shows this in his own response, but it crops out some of what geo says. here’s from dream’s video

that Update 2 is where he corrects himself. literally why the fuck would you crop it like this and put it in the video i mean this looks so weird and genuinely doesnt provide anything. Here’s what geo actually said

Dream specifically cut it before the line where geo mentions how he said he deleted his specific 1.16 speedrun profile. This one is just so dumb to me. I’d say ‘why not include that’ but either i feel its a) so there’s no potential for people to say what he had actually said could be interpreted otherwise easily or b) doesnt want people to know he got so upset he deleted files (ego wise yknow). Again, I dont think this is definitive of anything but god. it feels scummy lmao

The Video: Incorrect Representation of His Own Report

Dream straight up doesnt present the report’s numbers properly. In fact it makes the entirety of his visuals forfeit, i.e. the gold block analogy that goes on for like 20 minutes. 

The mods said his luck was 1/7.5 trillion. Dream’s report says its 1/10 million (with the addition of 5 other streams) or 1/100 million (only the 6 streams).

I’ll only consider the 1/10 mil odds, since its all dream really brings up. but Basically; there’s not much difference between 1/10 million and 1/7.5 trillion. 

Dream says that the difference is 7.5 trillion minus 10 million, aka 7.4999 trillion. This is what his entire visual with the gold blocks is based on. This is absolutely incorrect, i cant stress that enough. 

You can’t find the difference of fractions by subtracting only the denominators. Like. this is elementary school math. it just doesnt work. 

It’d actually be calculated as: (1/10 000 000) - (1/7 500 000 000 000) = (74999/7 500 000 000 000)

If the mods are wrong, they’re only wrong by 749999/7.5 trillion. that’s literally only  0.000000099999866666667. 

Dream no doubt saw the numbers, considered 10 million vs. 7.5 trillion, and used these big numbers to hold his own point. PROBABILITY DOESNT WORK LIKE THAT. I really think he was just taking advantage of the seemingly big numbers here and wrote it out in a way that favoured him. The gold block analogy in the video played throughout the entire video practically, jokes were made on it, and he made a point of it being ‘so big the game crashed’. 

It’s just plain wrong. even so a difference in the odds doesnt prove shit. He’s downplaying his own odds that he found too. 1/10 million isnt a small number. Even though the legitimacy of that calculation is in question, it is still significant enough to proclaim he cheated. 

Some quick points before I move onto the report; these aren’t as significant in my eyes but it adds to the picture

there’s been criticism of his joking manor throughout the entire video, very specifically the Bill Nye joke. Considering he doesnt actually have a name to provide for his astrophysicist, this joke doesnt feel right

the mod he had a voice clip from (willz) even believes that he cheated and has agreed with the mod team the whole time. 

Dream never has a name for the mod who is apparently on his side (more understandable), the minecraft developer he quoted, or the astrophysicist (most damning)

Dream states that fabric is used by most speedrunners which is true, but fabric and fabric API are different; dream also had the latter installed. my knowledge of how theyre different is limited, all i really know is the API is what can enable editing of the code while fabric is more a modloader. im not entirely sure on this

Dream has said at the end of the video that all funds will go to the mod team so they can make a client that will regulate cheaters. this has been noted as feeling manipulative or like a ‘bribe’, but it definitely puts the mods in a bad position. 

either they accept it and look like they ‘gave in’ to dream and therefore acknowledge him in the right

they deny it and look selfish/taking dream’s kindness for granted

geo said they would insist it goes to a charity instead

Dream constantly disregards the mods as young, inexperienced, ‘just volunteers’ etcetcetc, despite the fact that theyre analysis has been discussed by people with confirmed PhDs without much criticism

Dream’s Report

The report itself is extremely interesting, in that it’s very questionable, but even so it doesn’t come to the conclusion that dream didn’t cheat. The tone between the video and the report is drastically different. 

This is from the “3. What are the goals of this document?” section:

It essentially says this isnt intended, from the very beginning, to completely exonerate dream of cheating. Also note that the author says the mods’ report was mostly correct. 

This is at the end of “9 Conclussions”:

It does notably say cheating isnt the only explanation, but it doesnt actually go as far to say that it’s not possible that he cheated. 

But this can be argued to not matter if we consider the validity of the report as a whole

Dream’s Report: Criticisms

Possibly the first and most known debunking of the report is by u/mfb on reddit, although there’s been much more such as this programmer criticizing the code provided at the end of the report (partially due to how the author of it stated that piglins barter 4-7 pearls, which is incorrect: it’s 4-8), Andrew Gelman, an actual statistician professor from harvard, commented on the original mods’ report as ‘impressive’ while Dream’s report is being regarded as something funny in the comments, and even analysis of dream’s behaviours and his argument by a law student

But what u/mfb posted is what i’ll focus on. Some background into the user; he’s a particle physicist, is moderator in subreddits like r/cosmology and r/astrophysics, he’s regarded as a reliable source on r/askscience and r/askreddit. Basically, multiple other people have vouched for him and before all this he had many posts in these fields. 

that’s already better than the unnamed astrophysicist. 

The post is better speaking for itself but here is a few exerpts from it;

Essentially, the report’s methods are debunked by u/mfb-, alongside that a moderator of r/statistics regarded the report as ‘nonsensical in its application of statistics’ and linked to u/mfb-’s comment. 

i’m going to end this here. Partially because severe backpain or whatever,.

but I want to say at this point its practically definitive that dream cheated, that he lied to us, and that he continues to do so. Much more could be said on his video such as his tone, intentions, the overt emphasis on the ‘biases’ of the mods. 

I havent even mentioned that the ‘astrophysicist’ themself may be a scam; they are sourced from a website that is extremely sketchy, has no names attached to it, and was created less than a year ago (with practically no traffic on it until maybe a month ago). 

But i hope this is coherent. I have interest in this so if theres questions im always open. 

[mariaiscrafting]

I am so sorry to bother you, but I just had to ask as someone who is fairly new to the fandom: What has Karl done that made people mad at him?

I was also reading through your asks and saw everything on Dream (as a fellow Mexican- ouch.) But I guess my second question is which members aren't problematic and are okay to still like them? Sorry if it all seems random, I've just been trying to get some answers and this seemes like the best place to get them.

I'm not the best person to ask about Karl since I stopped paying attention to him by the end of February, but based on the asks I've gotten and the discourse I've seen here and there, here are the valid things I’ve seen people get mad at him for:

The autism charity stream many celebrities and CCs participated in, which Karl was invited to. Karl apologized on his alt Twitter account arguably later than he should've, and Mr. Beast continued on to participate in the charity anyways.

Traveling cross-country during the pandemic, before getting vaccinated: 1 2 3

Associating with and watching/being a part of the community of streamer, Ice Poseidon: 1 2

I have seen other criticism for Karl because people think he clout chases, dislike how loud/energetic he is, dislike Mr. Beast & co., etc., but personally? I think those are biased, evidenceless reasons that aren’t based on any moral transgression on his part, so I’m disregarding those.

(Note for others: please do not send me asks regarding this post, adding to the context for Karl. If you have any more information that I missed, add it in replies/reblogs, so the original anon can more easily see.)

*****

For your next question, my answer is that it’s okay to like virtually any MCYT creator, as far as I know. Welcome to mcytblr, where there is almost no right or wrong to the people you watch or stan! Despite everything I say about Dream, all the asks I get about Karl, or any of the other CCs I’ve criticized, everyone has the right to like or enjoy any CC they wish (to an extent). It takes a lot- like, extremist and/or genuinely harmful stuff- to convince me that a CC should be completely blacklisted from people’s radars. As of now though, no MCYT CC or Dream SMP member that I can think of besides CallMeCarson has done anything immoral enough to warrant the dictation of who can or can’t like them.

Almost every CC has done or said questionable things that could warrant “cancelling” in some people’s eyes. As I’ve previously said, there are many factors people can keep in mind when evaluating someone’s actions or words, and that final evaluation can vary from person to person within the fandom. Because CCs aren’t people we personally know, we get a very limited scope of their past, their intentions, and their personalities; as such, we each, based on our biases, preferences, and information received, will come to different conclusions on whether or not we forgive/accept the apologies of each CC. 

This isn’t Twitter. That is to say, most of mcytblr doesn’t want to dictate who you can or can’t stan. The MCYT CCs in this fandom have done an array of things, including- used ableist, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic slurs; joked about suicide, mental health, sexual assault, anti-semitism, genocide, feminism/misogyny, and racism; expressed classist, transphobic, racist, and misogynistic political beliefs; excluded colleagues and other creators based on bigoted beliefs; supported bigoted organizations and/or people. They have done these things over a span of time ranging from 7 years ago to a few months ago. Stated out-of-context, this makes it seem like this is a fandom full of people stanning bigots. 

But lack of context and snap judgements are for Twitter. The reality is that some people tweeted some edgy joke years ago; some people said slurs when they were playing FPS’s as young teenagers; some people made and/or make edgy jokes whilst never expressing genuine belief in those jokes. If you were to summarize the things I have done/said in the past 7 years the way a Twitter user or your average Tumblr anti-MCYT user would, you’d say: “Maria has said ableist and homophobic slurs; expressed xenophobic, Islamaphobic, homophobic, and racist political beliefs; and spouted transphobic and homophobic rhetoric.” That makes me sound like a horrible person, and who is to judge whether or not I am or even was a horrible person? Based on the apologies I have made, the way I treat people now, the length of time that has passed since I said those words or committed those actions, the severity of the bigoted things I have done or said, and the the actions I take and words I use today, the people in my life get to determine if they think I am currently ableist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, or transphobic. 

Along a similar vein, it is up to each of us to determine if we believe a CC has changed, if we should accept their apology for whatever they did. And if you don’t, then guess what? You don’t have to watch them.

All I suggest is, if it bothers you that much, try to collect as much unbiased information as possible, so you can make an informed decision. Don’t just rely on Twitter thread summaries or Insider/Medium-style articles or my posts to make your decisions. Find the original video, screenshot, etc. Find the timestamp. Watch the CC and determine whether or not they express the bigoted beliefs or prejudices their past actions would suggest. There is no “right” answer. I might think Dream hasn’t changed because of many reasons I’ve repeated entirely too many times, but there are many people who wouldn’t agree with me, and yk what? That’s fine. If you want to forgive a CC someone else doesn’t, who gives a fuck? 

Disclaimer: None of this applies to CallMeCarson or anyone else who has committed actions of a similar or more severe extent. Fuck CallMeCarson

[oldmanatom]

tagging update/new fandom

as a heads up, i just finished Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth and am DYING to reblog stuff about it, so that’s going to be showing up in my queue more often for the next while. (as usual with posts like these, it won’t be an uninterrupted stream—i did my best to spread them between my normal queued posts. also, my queue only posts 5x/day, so you may just not see it at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

the new tags:

the Locked Tomb trilogy as a whole (all posts will be tagged with this): one flesh one end

Gideon the Ninth: we do bones motherfucker

Harrow the Ninth: if aught but death part me and thee

[Alecto will be added once i’ve read it and have a good quote lmao]

any posts with significant spoilery elements: gtn spoilers (for Gideon), htn spoilers (for Harrow), atn spoilers (for Alecto)

some of what i’ll be reblogging is spoilery, so i’d recommend blacklisting these tags if you haven’t read it and intend to, because imo the surprises and twists are kind of integral to the story. or, at least, they’re big and good enough to be worth experiencing first hand versus being spoiled.

if you’re wondering whether or not you’d like to read this, my answer is: yes. (unless “vaguely grody”-to-“just plain grody” body horror/injuries/gore and suicide are absolute no goes, in which case maybe not; the first one is a persistent thing, the second one less so, but both are present.) i think the writing is excellent—i found the prose in particular to be a masterclass in the subject, personally—everyone is gay, and the plot is...fucking wild. felt like i’d been picked up by the ankles and swung around like a morningstar by the time i finished Harrow.

if you’re on the fence, the first 8 chapters of Gideon are posted for free on the publisher’s website, which i think will give you a very good idea of the tone and voice of the book. (that link goes to the first two chapters; the links to the others are at the top of the page.) if you like the writing but find it to be a slow start, things pick up once they get to Canaan House—chapter 7—and will accelerate to a whiplash sort of speed, rest assured.

also: if you read Gideon and want to come back and yell at me because of the ending, i will understand, and probably also ask you to read Harrow and then see if you still want to yell at me about the same thing(s).

if you have any questions about the trilogy, please, hit me up and i’ll do my best to answer them! and if you’ve already read these books, definitely hit me up, because i have A Lot Of Feelings and Very Many Questions/Theories.