#have an algorithm you can specifically opt in/out of

[violexides]

i want to make a poll about the new tumblr update thing seeing people’s thoughts but i am scared of having my notes flooded bc im already getting overwhelmed w my very little notifs these days. if anyone else craves violence w/ me and doesn’t mind heavy notes counts hmu 

[bisexualbaker]

Why do people keep recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative, when Dreamwidth and Tumblr are so different?

To be flat-out honest, it's because Dreamwidth has so many things that Tumblr users say they want, even if it's also lacking a lot of features that Tumblr users have come to love:

Dreamwidth has incredibly lax content hosting rules. I'd say that it's slightly more restrictive than AO3, but only just slightly, and only because AO3's abuse team has been so overwhelmed and over-worked. Otherwise, the hosting policies are pretty similar. You want to go nuts, show nuts? You can do that on Dreamwidth.

In fact, Dreamwidth is so serious about "go nuts, show nuts", it gave up the ability to accept transactions through PayPal in 2009 to protect our ability to do that. (It's also one reason why Dreamwidth doesn't have an app: Dreamwidth will never be beholden to Apple's content rules this way.)

Dreamwidth cares about your privacy; it doesn't sell your data, and barely collects any to begin with. As far as I'm aware, it only collects what it needs to run the site. The owners have also spoken out on behalf of internet privacy many times, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

No ads. Ever. Period. They mean it. Dreamwidth is entirely user funded.

Posts viewed in reverse chronological order; no algorithm, opt-in or otherwise. No algorithm at all. No "For You" or "Suggested" page. You still entirely create and curate your own experience.

The ability to make posts that only your "mutuals", or even only a specific subset of your "mutuals", can see. Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie, Clyde, Butch, and Cassidy? You can do that! Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie and Butch, but Clyde and Cassidy can't see shit? You can do that, too!

The owners have forsworn NFTs and the blockchain in general. Not as big a worry now as it was even a year ago, but still good to know!

We are explicitly the customers of Dreamwidth. Dreamwidth wants to make us happy, so any changes they make (and they do make changes) are made with us in mind, and after exploring as many possibilities as they can.

Dreamwidth is very transparent about their policies and changes. If you want to know why they're making a specific change, or keeping or getting rid of a feature, they will tell you. You don't have to find out ten months later that they're locked into a contract to keep it for a year (cough cough Tumblr Live cough cough).

So those are some things that Tumblr users would probably love about Dreamwidth.

Another reason Dreamwidth keeps being recommended is that a significant portion of the Age 30+ crowd spent a lot of earlier fandom years on a site known as LiveJournal. Dreamwidth may not be much like Tumblr, but it it started out as a code fork of LiveJournal, so it will be very familiar to anyone who spent any time there. Except better.

Finally, we're recommending Dreamwidth because some of the things that Tumblr users want are just... not going to happen on the web as it is now. Image hosting is the big one for this. Maybe in the future, the price of data will be much cheaper, and Dreamwidth will be able to host as much as we all want for a pittance that a fraction of the userbase will happily pay for everyone, but right now that's just not possible.

Everywhere you want to go that hosts a lot of images will either be running lots of ads, selling your data, or both.

Dreamwidth knows how much it costs to host your data, and has budgeted for that. They are hosting within their means, within our means.

Dreamwidth is the closest thing we may ever get to AO3 as a social media platform. One of the co-owners is from, and still in, fandom; she knows our values, because they are also her values. It may as well be the Blogsite Of Our Own.

[thegalleonsnest]

OK since I haven't seen too many people talk about this since twitter news usually strikes pretty fast over here whenever e'usk does anything ever, let me give ya'll the run down on two things that will go live on NOVEMBER 15TH and why people are mass migrating to Blue Sky once more; and provide resources to help protect your art and make the transition to Blue Sky easier if you so choose:

The Block function no longer blocks people as intended. It now basically acts as a glorified Mute button. Even when you block someone, they can still see your posts, but they can't engage in them. If your account is a Public one and not a Private one, people you blocked will see your posts.

They say because people can easily "share and hide harmful or private information about those they've blocked," they changed it this way for "greater transparency." When in reality, this is an extremely dangerous change, as the whole point of blocking is to cease interaction with people entirely for a plethora of reasons, i.e. stalking, harassment, spam, endangerment, or just plainly annoying and not wanting to see said tweets/accounts. or you know, for 18+ accounts who do not want minors interacting with them or their material at all (There is speculation saying these changes are specifically for Elon himself so he can do his own kind of stalking, and honestly, with the private likes change, it lowkey checks out in my opinion)

Also, this straight up goes against and may violate Apple and Google's app store policies and also is straight up illegal in Canada and probably other countries as well.

If this ACTUALLY goes through, twitter will only be available in select countries, probably exclusively in the US, which would collapse the site with the lost of users and stock, and probably be the last push it needs to kill the site. And if not, will be a very sad and exclusive platform made for specific kinds of people who line up with musk's line of thinking.

2. New policies regarding Grok AI and basically removing the option to opt out of Grok's information gathering to improve their software.

And anything you upload/post on the site is considered "fair game" with "royalty-free licenses" and they can do whatever they please with it. Primarily using any and all posts on twitter to train their Grok AI. A few months ago, there was a setting you can opt out of so they couldn't take anything you post to "improve" Grok, but I guess because so many people were opting out, they decided to make it mandatory as part of the policy change (This is mainly speculation from what I hear).

So this is considered the final straw for a LOT of people, especially artists who have been gripping on to twitter for as long as they can, but the AI nonsense is too much for people now, including myself. Lot's of people are moving to Blue Sky for good reason, and from personal experience, it is literally 10x better than twitter ever was, even before elon took over. There is no algorithm on there, and you can save "feeds" to your timeline to have a catered timelines to hop between if your looking for something specific like furry art or game dev stuff. It's taken them a bit to get off the ground and add much needed features, but it's genuinely so much better now

RESOURCES

Project Glaze & Cara

If you're an artist who's still on twitter or trying to ride it out for as long as you can for whatever reason you have, do yourself a favor and Glaze and/or Nightshade your work. Project Glaze is a free program designed to protect your art work from getting scrapped by AI machines. Glazing basically makes it harder to adapt and copy artwork that AI programs try to scan, while Nightshade basically "poisons" works to make AI libraries much more unstable and generate images completely off the mark. (These are layman's terms I'm using here, but follow the link to get more information)

The only problem with these programs is that they can be resource intensive for computers, and not every pc can run glaze. It's basically like rendering a frame/animation, you gotta let your pc sit there to get it glazed/nightshade, and depending on the intensity and power of your pc, this may take minutes to hours depending on how much you wanna protect your work.

HOWEVER, there are two alternatives, WebGlaze and Cara

WebGlaze is an in browser version of the program, so your pc doesn't have to do the heavy lifting. You do need to have an account with Glaze and be invited to use the program (I have not done so personally so I don't know much about the process.)

Cara is an artist focused site that doubles as both a portfolio site and a general social media platform. They've partnered with Glaze and have their own browser glazing called "Cara Glaze," and highly encourage users to post their work Glazed and are extremely anti-ai. You do get limited uses per day to glaze your work, so if you plan on doing a huge backlog uploading of your art, it may take awhile if your using just Cara Glaze.

Some twitter users have suggested glazing your art, cropping it, and overlaying it with a frame telling people to follow them elsewhere like on Bluesky. Here's a template someone provided if you wanna use this one or make your own.

Blue Sky Resources and Tips

So if your a twitter user and your about to realize the hellish task of refollowing a massive chunk of people you follow, have no fear, there's an extension called Sky Follower Bridge (Firefox & Chrome links). This is a very basic extension that makes it really easy to find people on Bluesky

It sorts them out by trying to find matching usernames, usernames in descriptions, or by screen name. It's not 100% perfect, there's a couple people I already follow on Blue Sky but the extension could not find them on twitter correctly, but I still found a huge chunk of people. Also if your worried that this extension is "iffy," they do have a github open with the source publicly available and the Blue Sky Team themselves have promoted the extension in their recent posts while welcoming new users to the platform.

FEEDS and LABELS

OK SO THE COOLEST PART ABOUT BLUESKY IS THE FEEDS SYSTEM. Basically if you've made a twitter list before, it's like that, but way more customizable and caters to specific types of posts/topics. Consolidating them into a timeline/feed that exclusively filled about those particular topics, or just people in general. There's thousands to pick and choose from!

Here's a couple of mine that I have saved and ready (down below). Some feeds I have saved so I can jump to seeing what my friends and mutuals are up to, and see their posts specifically so it doesn't get lost in reposts or other accounts, and also specialized feeds for browsing artists within the furry community.

The Furry Community feeds I have here were created by people who've built an algorithm to place any #furry or #furryart or other special tags like #Furrystreamer or #furrydev. They even have one for commissions, and yes you can say commissions on a post and not have it destroyed or shadow banned. You are safe.

If you want, and I highly recommend it to get visibility and check out a neat community, follow furryli.st to get added to their list and feeds. Once your on the list, even without a hashtag, you'll still pop up in their specialized feeds as just a member of the community there. There are plenty of other feeds out there besides this one, but I feel like a lot of people could use one like this. They even got ones for OC specific too I remember seeing somewhere.

And in terms of labels, they can be either ways to help label yourself with specific things or have user created accessibility settings to help better control your experience on Blue Sky.

And my personal favorite: Ai Imagery Labeler. Removes any AI stuff or hides it to the best of it's abilities, and it does a pretty good job, I have not seen anything AI related since subscribing to it.

Finally, HASHTAGS WORK & No need to censor yourself!

This is NOT like twitter or any other big named social media site AT ALL, so you don't have to work around words to get your stuff out there and be seen. There are literally feeds built around having commissions getting and art seen! Some people worry about bots and that has been a recent issue since a lot of people are migrating to Blue Sky, but it comes with any social media territory.

ALSO COOL PART,

you can search a hashtag on someone's profile and search exclusively on that profile as well! You can even put the hashtag in bio for easy access if you have a specialize tag like here on tumblr. OR EVEN BUILD YOUR OWN ART FEED FOR YOUR STUFF SPECIFICALLY!

So yeah, there's your quick run down about twitter's current burning building, how to protect your art, and what to do when you move to Blue Sky! Have fun!

[mariacallous]

A lawsuit filed Wednesday against Meta argues that US law requires the company to let people use unofficial add-ons to gain more control over their social feeds.

It’s the latest in a series of disputes in which the company has tussled with researchers and developers over tools that give users extra privacy options or that collect research data. It could clear the way for researchers to release add-ons that aid research into how the algorithms on social platforms affect their users, and it could give people more control over the algorithms that shape their lives.

The suit was filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of researcher Ethan Zuckerman, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. It attempts to take a federal law that has generally shielded social networks and use it as a tool forcing transparency.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is best known for allowing social media companies to evade legal liability for content on their platforms. Zuckerman’s suit argues that one of its subsections gives users the right to control how they access the internet, and the tools they use to do so.

“Section 230 (c) (2) (b) is quite explicit about libraries, parents, and others having the ability to control obscene or other unwanted content on the internet,” says Zuckerman. “I actually think that anticipates having control over a social network like Facebook, having this ability to sort of say, ‘We want to be able to opt out of the algorithm.’”

Zuckerman’s suit is aimed at preventing Facebook from blocking a new browser extension for Facebook that he is working on called Unfollow Everything 2.0. It would allow users to easily “unfollow” friends, groups, and pages on the service, meaning that updates from them no longer appear in the user’s newsfeed.

Zuckerman says that this would provide users the power to tune or effectively disable Facebook’s engagement-driven feed. Users can technically do this without the tool, but only by unfollowing each friend, group, and page individually.

There’s good reason to think Meta might make changes to Facebook to block Zuckerman’s tool after it is released. He says he won’t launch it without a ruling on his suit. In 2020, the company argued that the browser Friendly, which had let users search and reorder their Facebook news feeds as well as block ads and trackers, violated its terms of service and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In 2021, Meta permanently banned Louis Barclay, a British developer who had created a tool called Unfollow Everything, which Zuckerman’s add-on is named after.

“I still remember the feeling of unfollowing everything for the first time. It was near-miraculous. I had lost nothing, since I could still see my favorite friends and groups by going to them directly,” Barclay wrote for Slate at the time. “But I had gained a staggering amount of control. I was no longer tempted to scroll down an infinite feed of content. The time I spent on Facebook decreased dramatically.”

The same year, Meta kicked off from its platform some New York University researchers who had created a tool that monitored the political ads people saw on Facebook. Zuckerman is adding a feature to Unfollow Everything 2.0 that allows people to donate data from their use of the tool to his research project. He hopes to use the data to investigate whether users of his add-on who cleanse their feeds end up, like Barclay, using Facebook less.

Sophia Cope, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, says that the core parts of Section 230 related to platforms’ liability for content posted by users have been clarified through potentially thousands of cases. But few have specifically dealt with the part of the law Zuckerman’s suit seeks to leverage.

“There isn’t that much case law on that section of the law, so it will be interesting to see how a judge breaks it down,” says Cope. Zuckerman is a member of the EFF’s board of advisers.

John Morris, a principal at the Internet Society, a nonprofit that promotes open development of the internet, says that, to his knowledge, Zuckerman’s strategy “hasn’t been used before, in terms of using Section 230 to grant affirmative rights to users,” noting that a judge would likely take that claim seriously.

Meta has previously suggested that allowing add-ons that modify how people use its services raises security and privacy concerns. But Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, says that Zuckerman’s tool may be able to fairly push back on such an accusation.“The main problem with tools that give users more control over content moderation on existing platforms often has to do with privacy,” she says. “But if all this does is unfollow specified accounts, I would not expect that problem to arise here."

Even if a tool like Unfollow Everything 2.0 didn’t compromise users’ privacy, Meta might still be able to argue that it violates the company’s terms of service, as it did in Barclay’s case.

“Given Meta’s history, I could see why he would want a preemptive judgment,” says Cope. “He’d be immunized against any civil claim brought against him by Meta.”

And though Zuckerman says he would not be surprised if it takes years for his case to wind its way through the courts, he believes it’s important. “This feels like a particularly compelling case to do at a moment where people are really concerned about the power of algorithms,” he says.

[extremetimedchallengeexchange]

Rules and FAQ

The fastest gift exchange around. Objectively a bad idea. 48 hours of hyperfocus.

Schedule: (All times in EDT)

Tag Nominations Opens, Discord Opens: 0:01 August 14

Tag Nominations Closes: Midnight August 20

A03 Sign Up Opens 0:01 August 21

A03 Sign Up closes: Midnight August 27

Creation Phase: Noon EDT August 31 - Noon EDT September 2

Treating Week: September 2- September 9

Discord Closes: Noon September 9

Everybody admires everyone else's work: September 2 - Ongoing

Rules

The exchange is multifandom, and open to artists, writers, and podficcers. Fandoms do not have to have a canonized Ao3 tag to participate.

You must be a member of the Discord, for communication purposes.

Once assigned, participants will have 48 hours to deliver their gift.

Artists are expected to deliver a decent sketch, Writers and Podficcers have a 300 word minimum

No AI-Generated content.

This exchange will be operating on DL:DR when it comes to what the mods will police and what we ask you to respect in terms of other people’s requests. The single exception is RPF, which has additional rules. 

RPF is allowed. Persons nominated for RPF must be famous in their own right and over the age of 18. Persons famous chiefly for their participation in facist regimes or as serial killers will not be considered for nomination. Mods reserve the right to reject RPF nominations in poor taste.

Original Work is allowed. Use the "Original Work" fandom. If it is important to you that a person within a specific pairing is a specific gender, make that clear within the tag, for example "Middle-aged King (M)/His Loyal Bodyguard (NB) (Original Work)".

As this is a 13+ exchange, there is no NSFW allowed, even if you’re sure that both you and your recipient are adults. This applies both to sexual content and to extreme (e-rated) gore.

To increase matching options, tags must be seconded (nominated twice) to make it into the tag set. Because of this, tag nominations will be collected through a google form.

You can nominate tags for up to ten fandoms, with up to twenty tags nominated in each.

You will have one week to submit relationships and characters to a tag set, one week to write your prompts, and 48 hours to deliver your gift.

Participants are required to request at least three fandoms (with associated prompts), and offer to create around at least three fandoms.

To help your creator out, you must offer either a list of likes or prompts that contains at least one element that works for each art form that you have opted into. If you opt into art, you must give at least one art prompt or art like in your signup, and the same for fic or podfic.

To increase matching options, at least one of your ships has to be either Gen (platonic relationship) or a single-character tag— just one overall, not one per fandom.

Please include anything you absolutely don't want to receive (Do Not Wants) in the Optional Details field in your AO3 signup. Only DNWs in the Ao3 signup will be enforced, and mods will not enforce DNWs that are overly restrictive, unclear, or used to box a recipient into a specific gift (i.e. "nothing gross", or "I don't want anything that isn't a space au with the mc's other major love interest dead off screen".)

This exchange uses Ao3's matching algorithm, and as such, you need an Ao3 Account.

Make sure the email attached to your AO3 account is one that a) you check regularly, and b) are comfortable with exchange mods seeing. You can verify your email here: archiveofourown.org/users/[your ao3 name here]/change_email

As per Ao3 and Discord’s TOS, you must be at least 13.

Links

Ao3 Collection Here

Tag Set Here

Nominate Tags [form available in the discord]

Tag Nomination Rules Here,

Discord Here

Things We Do Differently Than Other Exchanges Here

Intro to how to sign up for an Ao3 Exchange Here. Variant using a gifter letter here. A note on what Solo tags mean in practice here.

Sign up for Ao3 Here (there is a waiting queue.)

Additional Challenges (just for fun):

One Day: Fulfil your gift within 24 hours.

Word Count: Write 5k or more on a single gift.

Art: Produce a fully-rendered and coloured (lined if that's your style) art piece with at least two characters, or a 10-panel comic with clean pencils or simple inks, within the 48 hours of the exchange.

Multi-media: Fulfil gifts that meets gift minimums for two different gift forms— art, fic, and/or podfic.

Multi-fandom: Make gifts that meet gift minimums for 3 or more fandoms.

FAQ:

Why? Because it seemed like a terrible idea.

How do I sign up/How do I format tags/Are you using OR matching: Signup FAQ on the Ao3 collection Here)

Further Questions? Join the Discord Here

[lexosaurus]

idk if this is a contreversial take or not but i think that the ideal internet experience is being able to remove specific things (triggers, nsfw, gore) if you truly dont want to see them but overall being also shown things you aren’t interested in. i think one of my fave things about tumblr is seeing like 50% of my dash be about fandoms im not in, bands i dont like and quotes from books i dont want to read rather than this endless feedback loop of tiktok showing me ‘exactly what i want to see’ in a trap to keep me online as long as possible and blind to communities outside of my own. i want a mix of curating my own experience and a healthy dose of content i don’t already know i want to see, yknow?

No I think this is a pretty safe take here on Tumblr. I think stuff like this is why most of us are still here on Tumblr instead of moving to other sites like Twitter (rip) or Tiktok, you know? Because we like that this is the last social media with no algorithm, and we want to keep it that way.

To be clear, this site DOES have an "optional" algorithm that everyone is automatically opted in on, and you have to go to your settings and turn it off manually (recently found out, you have to opt out on your desktop and on your mobile. They're treated as separate settings). But the fact that you can opt out at all is HUGE.

Like, I can just go ahead and turn this thing off, and then that's it! It's off!

I was thinking yesterday about how before Instagram and Facebook had an algorithm, people genuinely just used them to stay in touch with all the happenings from their friends and family. Like, I remember going on Facebook every single day to see what my friends and family that didn't live nearby were up to. It was so fun! And then once the algorithm hit, suddenly I was bombarded with all this stupid bullshit that I didn't care about but Facebook/Instagram thought I cared about. And then only people who I "interacted" with most would be shown to me, aka people that didn't post as often or I didn't message as much wouldn't be shown to me, and it was such a sly, sinister change that I didn't even realize how many of my friends/people I followed weren't being shown to me till I slowly stopped using the app as much because wtf why am I only being shown the same 10 people? Why can't I join a fb group without it invading my entire feed? Where is everyone else? Why does this app feel So Empty?

There's a noticeable decrease of people on this site now compared to the 2010s, but weirdly enough, this is like the only social media for me that still feels like people are on it. That I can genuinely interact with mutuals without some robot deciding, "Oh, you interacted with this one person once? You browsed their blog for 5 minutes? NOW I WILL ONLY SHOW YOU THIS SINGLE PERSON'S CONTENT IN EVERY OTHER POST IN YOUR FEED FOR THE NEXT MONTH."

This has turned into a big long rant from me but like shit, dude, it's so sad how much of our online experience is controlled by algorithms now.

[arimiadev]

Visual Novel Fest - Steam's attempt to show good will to VN devs

it's August 14th, 10AM CST as I write this, just a couple hours shy of the end of the first Visual Novel Festival held by Steam. I want to take a look at how sloppily this event was handled and how I hope (but doubt) things will change in the future.

Steam has realized since the start of Covid that, because they have the monopoly on PC gaming, they can and should go further with promoting games on their platform. when all of the gaming events were canceled in 2020, Steam took this as an opportunity to launch an idea they most likely had on the back burner for years-

festivals.

these festivals are events hosted on Steam where games that are submitted (and accepted) are promoted on the front page of Steam, a highly coveted spot for developers. these events are all themed like the puzzle games fest or the visual novel fest or the now multi annual steam next fest which features a variety of demos.

to put it in layman's terms, Steam now hosts festivals because they (are supposed to) give a big boost in visibility to games on their platform, a lot of which that will be discounted and sell a lot more copies than on normal days. developers want to get into these festivals because of this added visibility and increase in sales. it's a win win for both groups.

so now, in August 2023, we find ourselves at the Visual Novel Fest. for context, I have been an indie visual novel dev for almost a decade and have been a verified Steam developer for 5 or so years. Steam has held various VN-themed sales and such (namely publisher sales, like Sekai Project's occasional publisher sales) but not a festival just for visual novels. this is a wonderful chance for us indies to get a tiny bit of extra visibility, as selling VNs is hard!

the first problem- we can't get in.

festivals on Steam are opt-in. these themed sales are limited to games that can fit the themes, but these limits are put on the backend- that is, to say, only games that their Algorithm determines should get in can get in.

we think that this Algorithm checks for tags- if the mystery games fest is coming up, it sends out an email to games that have the "mystery" tag on it as games that can enter. however, this system is... it's broken. it's just broken. it was broken for the horror fest, it was broken for the mystery fest, and oh god was it broken for the visual novel fest.

lots of indie visual novels that were properly tagged as "visual novels" with the tag as one of the top tags for the game were never emailed about the fest. instead, we had to reach out to Steam and file an appeal.

these appeals took several weeks.

I don't know of any devs who submitted an appeal that were denied, but it is quite frustrating to have visual novels that are clearly visual novels not be invited to the festival and then have to wait several weeks before someone accepts the appeal.

but once we got invited to the fest, it was all blue skies from ther-

what do you mean they overpromised on features

Steam does additional promotions for their festivals on social media and such, namely making a trailer for the festival that gets shared to a lot of people- there's a lot of eyes on this trailer and they create it from games invited to the festival.

Steam reached out to several western developers and localizers about being featured for this event, including a visual novel I worked on. these features were much more stringent and required us to do more, such as requiring our games to be on sale during the fest (for normal submissions to fest, discounts are not required but encouraged).

one thing some of us skipped over, though... their wording was specifically "we may feature your game". not that they will feature the games that they specifically emailed and followed their stricter requirements, but that they may.

but I'm sure they'll pick some great representations of the visual novel mediu-

what do you mean the walking dead got featured

(click through this embed to find the video)

Steam had emailed several developers of actual visual novels and instead went with the cash grab option since they realized most VNs don't make money and decided to throw the "visual novel" part of the festival out the window.

the real kicker- the walking dead shouldn't have been allowed into the festival by Steam's own guidelines.

in the eligibility guidelines for the visual novel fest (edit: this page is now defunct because I guess they deleted it now that the fest is over??), they specifically mention that games that allow players to free roam will most likely not be eligible.

a ton of actual visual novels weren't invited to this event but don't worry, an interactive game without visual novel elements got featured.

so how did the festival go?

let's talk about the actual fest now.

the walking dead pretty much stayed at the top of categories for the entire festival, overpowering actual visual novels like ace attorney, steins;gate, ai: the somnium files, clannad, and many, many more.

Steam uses sub-genres to help players find more specific types of games easier, but very, very few of these are actually useful for narrative elements as they're mostly geared towards gameplay elements.

on the left is genres and on the right is sub-genres on Steam that were used as tags on games entered into the fest. as you can see, these fail to let players easily find the kinds of visual novels they might be interested in- what if I specifically want to find fantasy yuri? or boys love with trans characters? by in large, these tags are meant for gameplay oriented software, not narrative oriented software like visual novels.

Steam attempts to remedy this by adding categories on the page that has similar games together, but these ultimately fail because of how few there are.

first we have detective as a category. not too bad.

next is psychological horror and puzzle. again, not bad.

after that we have dating sim. most of these look to be dating sims by both the more traditional term (dating sim = a stat raiser with romantic elements) and the broader Western version (dating sim = romance game with multiple routes). I haven't played these specific ones so this is just a cursory glance.

we also have an otome category, wonderful! I wish these categories had a description underneath them, as if we want more people to get into visual novels then they need to have a way to learn these terms easily- "otome" does not immediately tell you "this is a game intended for women where romancing men is typically the goal", so I wish they had included some kind of descriptor for non-VN players glancing at the fest.

last but not least, we have the lgbt+ category- wait that's it?!

yes, those are the only categories highlighted as part of the festival, 3 of which are mystery game-oriented. want queer games, games with lesbians, games about trans experiences, and more? they're all in 1 category despite the wide array of queer visual novels on Steam.

it's extremely sad that one of the most diverse mediums out there always gets pigeonholed by Steam and the gaming community as a whole time and time again. I had good hopes for this festival but it was an extreme let down.

some developers I talked to were able to get a fair amount of visibility from this event, some barely hit more than average views. I hope Steam fests continue to evolve and Steam will expand their sub-genres, but I don't have much hope that they'll be half as good as itch.io's searching functions.

yes its time to shill itch.io

have YOU browsed the indie darling site itch.io recently?? why not??

itch.io is a website for sharing and playing indie games. it's completely free to use, easy to find games you might like, and pretty versatile for devs who might want to sell games, DLC, digital content, and more.

want to find visual novels that are dating sims with female protags and queer? that's easy to find!

want otome visual novels that are only about an hour long? here you go!

want visual novels for windows that are cute and have multiple endings? there's almost 200!

itch.io has a much, much wider range of tags that can be inputted by developers and allows you to search for platform, price, average game length, accessibility features, and more.

Steam will probably never be toppled as the place to get PC games unless they drive their company into the ground, but that doesn't mean we have to settle for it. there are other platforms we can find new indie visual novels and it feels like we're on the edge of a visual novel renaissance for localized VNs on consoles.

so yeah that's my recap of what I've seen from Steam's messy visual novel fest. you can find my own visual novels over here, I make queer games with a focus on fantasy. I also work at Studio Élan, an indie studio making yuri and other lgbt+ focused games.

[antimony-medusa]

Okay so, why do we tag things (on Ao3). Story hits you with a little summary and then a list of things that happen in it that's as long as your arm— why's that happening? So on Ao3, there are two reasons to tag things, and they both fit into how Ao3's search function works. You tag a story with "hurt no comfort", and "cyberpunk au" and that means that it shows up when people search "hurt no comfort" (the opt-in aspect of tagging culture), but it also does NOT show up when someone is searching "cyberpunk au" but has blocked "hurt no comfort" (the opt-out aspect of tagging culture).

Tags can serve as both an enticement, for people who want specifically that thing, and a warning, for people who might be like "you know actually I don't think I can handle that right now". And I sometimes see people who are used to the way other sites use tags hit Ao3, and they are NOT used to how the tagging culture works, and they either tag their work inappropriately, or they are freaked out by the way other people's work is tagged.

On most social media sites nowdays, you tag things for exposure. People follow or search certain tags, and if you tag your tiktok with #foryoupage, it's more likely to show up on people's For You Page. (I think, Tiktok is an arcane mystery to me). There are definitely tags that circulate your fandom that are there to lure people in who are searching for that tag, I know for sure that people search on "humans are space orcs", and I have searched for "Technoblade is autistic" and I know there are people searching for "Tommyinnit gets a hug", etc. Sort of positive tagging.

Anyways, I have seen people scrolling and then they hit something tagged with like, "rape/non-con", and then they go WHAT THE FUCK WHAT ALGORITHM IS ON THE GO HERE WHY AM I BEING SHOWN THAT.

But the thing is, there's no algorithm on the go here. Sometimes yes, people are tagging with a tag that you personally see as horrible and they mean it as an enticement (A) horny brain works in marvellous and non-logical ways, B) sometimes people want to read about the worst possible thing happening), but a very good portion of the time that tag is there as a warning and to make sure that if people have excluded that tag, they don't even have to see it. You can't rely on the algorithm to not show you things you don't want to see, you're responsible for excluding the stuff that you go "uh no" to from the search. But once you HAVE excluded it, poof. You will not see that shit.

The tag is there specifically to make sure that nobody has something triggering hits them when they're unprepared, just reading along happily and then boom, erotic cannibalism. That shit is supposed to be in the tags.

(The one exception to that is if the author has selected "choose not to warn", which you are supposed to take as a warning that it's alllll on the table. Buyer beware, there could be absolutely anything happening here, including major triggering content. So I know people who search with a bunch of excluded content, and they just exclude Choose Not To Warn as well.)

Anyways, people get used to the way other sites use tags, and not only do they not know why people are tagging with all these negative things, they get used to the shadowbans. If you mention [list of things tiktok hates], you won't show up when people search. So then they don't put any tags they figure are objectionable on the work.

This is EXTREMELY counterproductive to the way Ao3 actually works, because there is no algorithm or shadowban on Ao3. Anyone who's been there a long time has had the experience of searching something and then like the third hit is something where you go "I did not even know that was a kink, okay, life is a rich tapestry", which on any other site would have been shadowbanned so hard. Which means that yes, your post is going to show up in more searches, but actually that's a bad thing, because it's going to show up as a hit for people who would really prefer not to see that.

The whole idea of Ao3 tagging culture is that you can opt in to your experience when you choose to read, whether that means you're searching for the [bad thing] or blocking the [bad thing]. When you avoid tagging things, surprising people with things like underage sex when they have had every expectation to know that they avoided that, that's BAD.

Tagging lets you actually find the target audience of people who wants to read what you wrote, and it lets people who are going to be mad or hurt by your work stay away.

Anyways this is a really long-winded way to say TAG YOUR SHIT PLEASE.

[the-jellicle-duelist]

really really really really fucking Pissed OFF because of MEDIA ALGORITHMS there is NO WAY to opt out of specific kinds of content. an anime i like just aired it's season finale, but i haven't seen it yet, AND THERE ARE VIDEOS OF JUST CLIPS OF IT!!! youtube wants me to watch them and they shove them in my recommended feed. people have ABSOLUTELY NO CHILL, so the thumbnails are Spoilers, and the titles are a Description of the Spoilers.

THE ONLY THING YOU CAN DO IS JUST not use apps until you watch tv? legitmately this is a bad business model if my only recourse to avoid content i don't want to see is to not open your app, the thing i know you want me to do.

how is it 2024, and we are absolutely inundated with apps telling us what we want to see, and i have absolutely zero granular control over my feed? if you SERVE me that content, i should be able to blacklist that content manually somewhere until i want to opt back in.

i'm so mad. anyways i won't be using youtube until i watch anime again.

[vavuska]

Seems that EA is now allegedly accused of a mayor privacy violation, having used tracking tools on The Sims FreePlay app to secretly gather and transmit players’ personal information to Facebook for advertising purposes. This data potentially includes unique Facebook IDs, which can be used to match players’ in-game activities to their individual Facebook profiles. Attorneys suspect that these potential data-sharing practices may violate a federal privacy law and are now gathering players to take action.

So, there are at least two class action against EA, because it seems to collect data from players using the Meta Pixel software to harness data from players and sell it to the Meta company, who owns Instagram, Facebook and other social networks.

It would be interesting to learn if this allegations are true and how this would be seen in the eyes of GDPR, European Regulation 679/2016, which allows the processing of personal data only with consent given by the data subjects and also in the context of (online) games.

Consent in the context of the GDPR must be understood as an unambiguous indication of an informed and freely given choice by the data subject, relating to specific processing activities. The burden of proof that these criteria are fulfilled falls upon the controller (i.e., the game developer).

Google Play list the privacy condition of EA for its games, including The Sims Freeplay. Basically EA claims to use players data only to give them "better game experience", which seems vague but not less legit. The only less transparent thing I noticed is that the instructions to opt out of targeted marketing of in-game ads are in English and not in Italian: downloading the game, players allows EA to share their account information with third-party partners to customize advertising experience, which is basically all app developers do, but it's weird that the instruction to opt out doesn't have been translated at all!

This is not the first time EA is accused of, well, unethical commercial practice, since EA has been sentenced to pay fines by Austrian (2023) and Belgian (2018) civil court, because their FIFA loot boxes violated local gambling laws.

Moreover, it's important to notice that in January 2023, the European Parliament adopted a report calling for harmonized EU rules to achieve better player protection in the online video game sector.

The Parliament called for greater transparency from developers about in-game purchases: player should be aware of the type of content before starting to play and during the game. Also, players should be informed on the probabilities in loot box mechanisms, including information in plain language about what algorithms are devised to achieve.

The Parliament further stressed that the proposed legislation should assess whether an obligation to disable in-game payments and loot boxes mechanisms by default or a ban on paid loot boxes should be proposed to protect minors, avoid the fragmentation of the single market and ensure that consumers benefit from the same level of protection, no matter of their place of residence.

The Parliament highlighted problematic practices, including exploiting cognitive biases and vulnerabilities of consumers through deceptive design and marketing, using layers of virtual currencies to mask/distort real-world monetary costs, and targeting loot boxes and manipulative practices towards minors.

[chaoskirin]

Have you found that you’ve been less motivated to create art now that AI has become so good?

I don’t really draw anymore because whenever I start a new drawing, I’m immediately plagued by thoughts like, why even bother? This piece is going to take hours when, theoretically, I could ask Mid-journey to do it for me and it would take about 10 seconds and probably look way better. So like, why should I even try?

I’m at college getting a degree in illustration but I’m afraid that by the time I graduate and get out into the field, I won’t have any job prospects. Human artists are becoming increasingly obsolete in the corporate world and I feel like nobody is going to want to hire me. I mean, from a shitty CEO’s perspective, why hire human artists when AI is right there? It’s faster and cheaper. Many established studio and corporate artists are already being fired in droves. We’re seeing it happen in real time.

I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. AI has drained me of my creativity and my future job security. I’ve lost interest in one of my dearest hobbies and my degree may end up becoming completely useless. I loathe AI for the way it has stripped me of something I’ve dedicated so many years of my life to. Something that was once so precious to me.

I feel that I’ve spent thousands of hours honing a now useless skill. And that really sucks.

Sorry for ranting in your inbox, I hope you don’t mind… but since you are a working adult and do art and writing (of course writing AI has gotten stupid good as well and I’m bitter about that too) professionally, and as a hobby too, I figured that you would definitely understand.

Hey! This is a great question, and I have what I hope is a very hope-filled answer.

By the way, I don't call image generation "AI." It's not. There's no actual intelligence involved. It's an algorithm that averages images and combines them into something new. I refer to it as GenSlop.

First, the reason you're seeing such a proliferation of image generators attaching their dirty little claws into every website on the internet is due to what I call "just-in-casing." Rather than develop an ACTUAL ethical image generator (which would only use images from creative commons or pay artists for their use) generators like Deviantart's DreamUp and Twitter's Grok (?????? wtf is that name) have just stuffed LAION-5 into their code and called it a day.

Why? Why not wait and create an ethical dataset over several years?

Because it's become more likely than not than image generation is going to become strictly regulated by law, and companies like DA, Stability, Twitter, Adobe, and many others want to profit off it while it's still free and "legal."

I say "legal" in quotes, because at the moment, it's neither legal nor illegal. There are no laws in existence to govern this specific thing because it appeared so fast, there was literally no predicting it. So now it's in a legal grey area where it can't be prosecuted by US courts. (But it can be litigated--more on that in a bit.)

When laws are passed to govern the use of image generators, these companies that opted to use LAION-5 immediately without concern for the artists and communities they were harming will have to stop. but because of precedent, they will likely have their prior use of these generators forgiven, meaning they will not be forced to pay fines on their use before a certain date.

So while it seems they're popping up everywhere and taking over the art market, this is only so they can get in their share of profits from it before it becomes illegal to use them without compensation or consent.

But how do I know the law will support artists on this?

First, litigation. There are several huge lawsuits right now; one notable lawsuit against almost every major company using GenSlop technology with plaintiffs like Karla Ortiz and Grzegorz Rutkowski, among other high-profile artists. This lawsuit was recently """pared down""" or """mostly dismissed""" according to pro-GenSlop users, but what really happened is that the judge in the case asked the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to be more specific, which is generally a positive thing in cases like this. It means that precedent after a decision will be far clearer and have a longer reach than a more generalized complaint.

I don't know what pro-GenSloppers are insisting on spreading the "dismissal" tale on the internet, except to discourage actual artists. What they say has no bearing in the court, and it's looking more and more likely that the plaintiffs will be able to win this case and claim damages.

Getty Images, a huge image stock company, is also suing Stability AI for scraping its database. I'm not as well-versed on the case, though.

The other positive, despite what a lot of artists are saying, is the new SAG-AFTRA contract.

It's not perfect. It still allows GenSlop use. But it does require consent and compensation. Ideally, it would ban the use of artist images and voice entirely, but this contract is far better than what they would have gotten without striking. If you recall, before the strike, the AMPTP wanted to be able to use actor images and voices without any compensation or permission, without limitation.

And you can bet your ass that Hollywood isn't going to allow other organizations to have unregulated GenSlop use if they can't. They might even step in to argue against its use in front of congress, because their outlook is going to be "if we can't make money stealing art, no one else should be able to, either."

TL;DR: the huge proliferation of image generators and GenSlop right now is only because it's neither legal nor illegal. Regulations are coming, and artists will still be necessary and even required. Because the world is essentially built on a backbone or artistry.

I personally can't wait to drink the tears of all the techbros who can't steal art anymore.

[f0rt1e]

Devlog #1 | Major functions prototyping

Today, I'm excited to share a closer look at the nuts and bolts of my indie game development journey—specifically focusing on two pivotal aspects: building and pathfinding. As I've been piecing together my medieval city builder, figuring out the best ways for players to construct their cities and navigate them has been both a challenge and a revelation. In this post, I'll walk you through the different approaches I considered for these key game mechanics, the reasoning behind my choices, and how these decisions are shaping the game's development. Let's dive into the foundations of building systems and the intricacies of pathfinding algorithms!

Pathfinding 

Right from the start, I envisioned peasants as the backbone of my game. They're the ones who get things done—building structures, transporting goods, and tackling tasks like woodcutting and farming. I also knew I wanted a user-friendly road system; something as simple as drag, click, and voila—a road appears. My goal was to design the pathfinding in such a way that, when calculating routes, the peasants would prefer paths with road tiles over those with grass tiles. Fortunately, Godot offers some great features like pathfinding and the A* algorithm, which are perfect for this.

I opted for the pathfinding capabilities provided by navigation agents and navigation servers in Godot 4. This system allows for straightforward designation of tiles as walkable or non-walkable. Additionally, it supports the use of navigation obstacles for path avoidance strategies. While Godot offers an extensive toolkit for navigation, it can be challenging when dealing with objects that have collision shapes. This required some intricate coding on my part, involving setting up areas and collisions, creating polygons, and then integrating everything by baking the polygons and areas into a single region that communicates with a server. Fortunately, this approach worked seamlessly, perfectly accommodating the mix of tile obstacles and node-based obstacles present in my game.

Pathfinding with Navigation Agent and Navigation Server alongside with custom solutions to find a road tiles

The real challenge cropped up when I started fine-tuning the path calculations. As you might recall, my goal was for the peasants to prefer roads over any other type of terrain. Unfortunately, I discovered that Godot pathfinding didn’t have built-in functionality to assign different weights to the tiles, which was crucial for my needs. To work around this, I developed a custom solution: I implemented raycasting to dynamically assess the area around the peasant every time they moved. This system checked the six surrounding tiles, prioritizing the road tiles for movement and recalculating the path repeatedly until the peasant reached their destination.

Although this method seemed promising, it was riddled with bugs. It failed to function correctly when moving from the negative Y to positive Y direction, occasionally missed the final destination, and sometimes caused the peasant to loop unnecessarily. Overall, I was quite disappointed with how it turned out.

With A* pathfinding works smoothly - it calculates the path using the roads and considers objects as obstacles

I then switched to another strategy—using the A* algorithm. A* facilitates grid-based movement without actually needing to implement a physical grid. All I had to do was overlay the tilemap and specify which tiles were navigable and which weren’t—similar to what I tried with navigation agents, but this method was far simpler and required significantly less coding. Once I integrated A*, things started to fall into place beautifully. I could easily set obstacles and assign weights to different tiles, influencing movement costs. Now, my peasants automatically prefer roads over any other terrain.

The only snag I hit with A* was dealing with objects that had collision shapes, making them impassable. To handle this, I needed to calculate the space each object occupied, convert that into an array of tile positions, and mark each tile in that array as non-walkable. With these adjustments, A* now functions precisely as I envisioned.

Building

When it came time to decide on a building system, I was torn between a grid-based setup and a freeplacing system. Without a clear preference for the pros and cons of each, I opted for the freeplacing approach simply because it seemed straightforward.

Implementing this system was relatively smooth. I added a few buttons, sketched some designs, and incorporated a handful of aesthetic enhancements like building ghosts for preview, Z sorting for layer management, and obstacle checks to prevent overlap. The mechanics were basic: select a scene, node, or tile, grab the mouse coordinates, and drop the new object right where the cursor is located.

Freeplacing system allows you to put building wherever you want

I didn’t stop there, though. I integrated collision shapes to keep objects from overlapping, devised a road system for constructing pathways, and even developed a feature that snaps buildings to the nearest road if one is nearby, enhancing the building experience.

Road system has a temporary road color. It works only in 4 direction between point A and B - but it's enough at this point

However, over time, I noticed some issues with this freeplacing method, particularly with area checking and pathfinding. It became clear that I needed a more structured approach, prompting me to start transitioning to a grid-based system. This change is still underway, and I’ll share more about it in future updates.

On the bright side, the building system I’ve set up is highly flexible and scalable, thanks to custom resources similar to Unity’s ScriptableObjects. This allows me to easily create a variety of buildings by simply generating new resources from the established custom resource template.

Current system allows to put roads and few types of building, also checking the overlapping

Overall, I was somewhat pleased with how the freeplacing system turned out, but I couldn't shake the feeling that its initial design was a bit off. It ended up being more complicated than necessary, with several superfluous features that only served to clutter the code and lead to a slew of errors. I'm still on the fence about which system is truly better, but considering my future plans and the direction I want to take the game, I'm leaning more towards adopting a grid-based system. It seems like it will better align with my upcoming needs.

Future plans

In my upcoming posts, I’ll dive into some key features I've been prototyping, such as work placement, assigning tasks to peasants, the basic mechanics of their first jobs, and some initial interface designs.

As I mentioned before, I’m currently overhauling the building system. It’s a substantial update, so it's taking a bit of time, but I'm optimistic about sharing some positive updates with you soon. Once the new building system is in place, I plan to introduce additional workplaces to demonstrate how different systems interact. For example, a woodcutter will chop down trees, transport the logs to a hut, and then another worker will take these logs to a sawmill to process them into planks and firewood. This will showcase a linear progression of materials within the game.

Thanks for reading - and do not hesitate to ask any questions if you have some. See you soon!

[fvriva]

🐖 iska pretty please?

putting this one behind a readmore again haha

send an oc + emoji (or order the WHOLE HOG)

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

This one was out of my hands. I designed Iskandar Kiriyakuya originally by algorithmically trying to create my ideal waifu, two of the seeds involved there being Kyoko Kirigiri and Togami Byakuya from Danganronpa 1. We simply mashed their surnames together into Kiriyakuya. Iskandar came from Rider from Fate/Zero, somehow, probably because she's a cavalry rider and a warlord.

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

At the beginning of Isekai I believe I said she was 30.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

She's got a couple of bitches she's left on the table due to being inept at dating and emotionally constipated. Her childhood crush, Baphira Kaneshiro is unhappily married to a merchant that is never home. She's gotten her ass beat by a pro wrestler, Hira Diamondclast. She's been given the run-around and got very close with a boat clown, Hayfa. She currently has gay little standoffs or something with over half of the women in the party. High noon shootout situation.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Iska famously doesn't really like food because of a long history of medical issues before she got her core installed. But it's basically a form of hotpot with a milky tea and beef based broth.

💼 - What do they do for a living?

She's a warlord, servant of the Meikugan Empire, babysitter to the children of prophecy, and a hesitant emissary of the Meikugan Quintessence.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

She likes riding and caring for her axirin mount, Sareyn. She likes solving little puzzles as forceshaping exercises.

🎯 -What do they do best?

She's not the best in the world by any means but she's rather good at very fine manipulation of forces. Very precise telekinesis. She's also very good with animals.

🥊 - What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

She loves tasks. Following orders. Being told what to do. Unless it's the Coinspinner, god of Fate, speaking. She also dislikes dealing with irritating people and is rather bad at doing so peacefully. She's also awful at sharing information about herself with people and being vulnerable in any way.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

After the fight with the Tangled Beast she woke up on the operating table, core newly implanted in her body, and even though she felt like complete shit physically speaking, she was surrounded by her family members and her mom nodded at her in approval and her father shook her hand in congratulation. Feridhun made her favorite soup.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

When she got outed as gay to her mother. She thought in the moment it was Baphy that had done it (it was actually Baphy's shithead half-sibling) which made it sting worse. Her mom took that as a sign that despite Iskandar's childhood fragility it was time to take her to the warfront and beat some backbone into her, that she'd lost sight of her lot in life and role within the family.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

Pretty much. She's been slowly changing over the course of the campaign. There are different things I would have chosen to put in her design if I was making her specifically for Isekai as opposed to co-opting her though.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

The whole waifu generation process. I shan't elaborate further.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

High fantasy, especially military/political fantasy. Her personality has had to adapt somewhat to match the more action/adventure oriented story though. She's not as smart, calculating, or patient as a traditional protagonist in the genre because of it.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Lesbian. She hasn't done much experimentation with gender but I feel like if she could she would get a kick out of being perceived as butch especially if she can do so while still keeping her long hair. Butch in like a Chinese warlord way. I dunno.

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

None siblings.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Bad! She was closer with her dad, sorta, when she was younger but he died while she was away at war. He never really saw her as more than just a fun plaything though. A child that lives in his house, not his daughter. Her mom has always been pretty frosty and resentful of her cringe child, constantly pushing her well past her various breaking points.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

I like the tension between her being so fierce and strong and very visibly being damaged goods. All her current peers are leery of approaching her, she has all this presence, she's very scary, but she's also just so pathetic and pitable. She's so sucks.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

I roleplay her pretty often but I don't draw her much these days unless I'm either objectifying her or putting her in a humiliating outfit. I wrote a bit for her before the campaign started officially but haven't since.

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I could. Would need to be a really worthy death though. She's too cringe to be allowed to die yet.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Intimacy. Internalized homophobia. This isn't so much a phobia as an irrational dislike, but she loathes opulence and indulging in comforts on principle.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

Gohar Kaneshiro, the saultry little bitch that outed her is her main on-sight nemesis. She's got other enemies (she fuckin hates the Coinspinner. Tried to punch him once but it went down like Sun Wukong vs the Buddha) but they're all fleeting in the face of Gohar.

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

Seems like I named her in September 2020 so about 3.5 years

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

I would've been 20!

[mariacallous]

TikTok recently announced that its users in the European Union will soon be able to switch off its infamously engaging content-selection algorithm. The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) is driving this change as part of the region’s broader effort to regulate AI and digital services in accordance with human rights and values.

TikTok’s algorithm learns from users’ interactions—how long they watch, what they like, when they share a video—to create a highly tailored and immersive experience that can shape their mental states, preferences, and behaviors without their full awareness or consent. An opt-out feature is a great step toward protecting cognitive liberty, the fundamental right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences. Rather than being confined to algorithmically curated For You pages and live feeds, users will be able to see trending videos in their region and language, or a “Following and Friends” feed that lists the creators they follow in chronological order. This prioritizes popular content in their region rather than content selected for its stickiness. The law also bans targeted advertisement to users between 13 and 17 years old, and provides more information and reporting options to flag illegal or harmful content.

In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, Big Data, and digital media, the urgent need to protect cognitive liberty is gaining attention. The proposed EU AI Act offers some safeguards against mental manipulation. UNESCO’s approach to AI centers human rights, the Biden Administration’s voluntary commitments from AI companies addresses deception and fraud, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has incorporated cognitive liberty into its principles for responsible governance of emerging technologies. But while laws and proposals like these are making strides, they often focus on subsets of the problem, such as privacy by design or data minimization, rather than mapping an explicit, comprehensive approach to protecting our ability to think freely. Without robust legal frameworks in place worldwide, the developers and providers of these technologies may escape accountability. This is why mere incremental changes won't suffice. Lawmakers and companies urgently need to reform the business models on which the tech ecosystem is predicated.

A well-structured plan requires a combination of regulations, incentives, and commercial redesigns focusing on cognitive liberty. Regulatory standards must govern user engagement models, information sharing, and data privacy. Strong legal safeguards must be in place against interfering with mental privacy and manipulation. Companies must be transparent about how the algorithms they’re deploying work, and have a duty to assess, disclose, and adopt safeguards against undue influence.

Much like corporate social responsibility guidelines, companies should also be legally required to assess their technology for its impact on cognitive liberty, providing transparency on algorithms, data use, content moderation practices, and cognitive shaping. Efforts at impact assessments are already integral to legislative proposals worldwide, including the EU’s Digital Services Act, the US's proposed Algorithmic Accountability Act and American Data Privacy and Protection Act, and voluntary mechanisms like the US National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 2023 Risk Management Framework. An impact assessment tool for cognitive liberty would specifically measure AI’s influence on self-determination, mental privacy, and freedom of thought and decisionmaking, focusing on transparency, data practices, and mental manipulation. The necessary data would encompass detailed descriptions of the algorithms, data sources and collection, and evidence of the technology's effects on user cognition.

Tax incentives and funding could also fuel innovation in business practices and products to bolster cognitive liberty. Leading AI ethics researchers emphasize that an organizational culture prioritizing safety is essential to counter the many risks posed by large language models. Governments can encourage this by offering tax breaks and funding opportunities, such as those included in the proposed Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, to companies that actively collaborate with educational institutions in order to create AI safety programs that foster self-determination and critical thinking skills. Tax incentives  could also support research and innovation for tools and techniques that surface deception by AI models.

Technology companies should also adopt design principles embodying cognitive liberty. Options like adjustable settings on TikTok or greater control over notifications on Apple devices are steps in the right direction. Other features that enable self-determination—including labeling content with “badges” that specify content as human- or machine-generated, or asking users to engage critically with an article before resharing it—should become the norm across digital platforms.

The TikTok policy change in Europe is a win, but it’s not the endgame. We urgently need to update our digital rulebook, implementing new laws, regulations, and incentives that safeguard user’s rights and hold platforms accountable. Let’s not leave the control over our minds to technology companies alone; it’s time for global action to prioritize cognitive liberty in the digital age.

[bopinion]

2024 / 24

Aperçu of the Week

"It is an old German disease that by pointing to the best of tomorrow, one does not do the good of today, and the bad of yesterday remains."

(Klaus Töpfer, former German Environment Minister and long-time Executive Director of the UN Environment Program, died last week at the age of 85)

Bad News of the Week

Biologically speaking, humans are just one of many vertebrates. And yet we consider ourselves to be the "crown of creation" - in other words, something better. And reserve basic rights for most other vertebrates. After all, they are "only" animals. I don't want to start talking about cruel animal husbandry or the ruthless repression of habitats here, even if this receives too little attention. Instead, I would like to talk about a species that would not exist in this form without human intervention: Pigeons.

Most of the populations that live in our cities today can be traced back to pets that were released into the wild. And have since been reviled as "rats of the air". And at the same time highly stylized as a symbol of peace, innocence and loyalty. Their phenomenal sense of orientation with the help of their magnetic sensory perception makes them clearly superior to us humans, at least in this respect.

Due to a lack of natural predators, pigeon populations are getting out of hand in some places (at least in the estimation of the top vertebrate). One proven effective method - albeit relatively costly - is the construction of pigeon lofts in which their eggs are replaced with plaster eggs. The inhabitants of Limburg, a town with a population of almost 40,000 in Hesse, evidently find this too laborious.

In a sensational referendum, the majority of Limburg residents opted for a, well, rather radical method of population reduction: a falconer is to lure the animals into a crate, stun them with a blow to the head and kill them by breaking their necks. Creepy. And quite medieval. But Limburg already existed in the 10th century. It's a shame that civilization there hasn't developed in line with the times in all areas.

Good News of the Week

There have been many international summits in the last few days. Including a meeting of the G7 in Italy. There was one real highlight that all participants were able to agree on - despite many differences in day-to-day political business. Namely, further support for Ukraine. This time it is less about the promise of military support and more about cash. Specifically, Russian money. State assets that are also held in accounts in the USA, Germany, Canada, France, the UK, Japan and Italy - and have been frozen since the start of the war against Ukraine.

Legally (as if that were the point) the assets obviously cannot simply be confiscated. But money continues to "work" even when it is frozen. By earning interest. And apparently Russian money earns a lot of interest. Because the G7 is now using the interest from frozen Russian state assets to finance a Ukraine aid package worth USD 50 billion. And money can be used in more ways than weapons. Because it can not only be used to buy ammunition. It can also be used to buy medicines. And pay bus drivers. And rebuild destroyed schools. Who knows, maybe there will soon be a "Vladimir Putin Primary School" in Kharkiv. Because he not only bombed it, but also rebuilt it with his money.

Personal happy moment of the week

I play Wordle. In English and German. And I score quite good. But winning at the second try is pure luck. But it's nice anyway, when you are called "Genius!". Even if it's just by an algorithm. There are weeks when this is enough for the personal happy moment.

I couldn't care less...

...that the UN Security Council has come out in favor of the plan for a ceasefire in Gaza. Because if any country gives a shit besides the US what the UN thinks or says, it's Israel.

As I write this...

...the European Men's Football Championship is underway. And Germany is dreaming of another "summer fairytale". When Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup, a special, light atmosphere prevailed for the four weeks of the tournament, in which it was easy to forget the hardships of everyday life. Especially now, in this culmination of crises, that would be pleasant again. Even if it doesn't fundamentally change anything.

Post Scriptum

The AfD (Alternative for Germany / Alternative for Germany) member of parliament Petr Bystron - yes, as you can see from the name, there are also xenophobes with a migration background - is under investigation for money laundering and bribery. These must now be dropped, at least for the time being. This is because Bystron was elected to the European Parliament in second place on the AfD party list. And therefore enjoys immunity. At least until it is officially withdrawn at official request. It is absurd that legislators, of all people, should be above the law. Even if it is just a formality.