#is it illegal to promote an app

[dwoality2123]

Guys, guys, guys!!

It’s a good app, try it. I’m not the type to use planner apps or planners in general, my life is a mess. But…like, I like this app??

IT HAS A FONT STYLE DESIGNED TO HELP AT LEAST A BIT FOR DYSLEXIC PEOPLE??

It does have premium but without it, it works just fine.

The format itself is minimal but easy to navigate. It has helped me fix my sleep schedule a bit, but, like, you still need to have the discipline to actually follow the schedule you plan for yourself. No planners will help you if you don’t follow through with it. Creating tasks and reminders are easy and you can use OneSec which:

And this is what it mainly looks like, I customized my appearance to be purple tho

[daz4i]

it should be illegal to advertise products that encourage starving yourself i think

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prime’s enshittified advertising

Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/amazon-prime-video-is-getting-more-ads-next-year/

The cruelty isn't the point. Money is the point. Every ad that Amazon shows you shifts value away from you – your time, your attention – to the company's shareholders.

That's the crux of enshittification. Companies don't enshittify – making their once-useful products monotonically worse – because it amuses them to erode the quality of their offerings. They enshittify them because their products are zero-sum: the things that make them valuable to you (watching videos without ads) make things less valuable to them (because they can't monetize your attention).

This isn't new. The internet has always been dominated by intermediaries – platforms – because there are lots more people who want to use the internet than are capable of building the internet. There's more people who want to write blogs than can make a blogging app. There's more people who want to play and listen to music than can host a music streaming service. There's more people who want to write and read ebooks than want to operate an ebook store or sell an ebooks reader.

Despite all the early internet rhetoric about the glories of disintermediation, intermediaries are good, actually:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

The problem isn't with intermediaries per se. The problem arises when intermediaries grow so powerful that they usurp the relationship between the parties they connect. The problem with Uber isn't the use of mobile phones to tell taxis that you're standing on a street somewhere and would like a cab, please. The problem is rampant worker misclassification, regulatory arbitrage, starvation wages, and price-gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

There's no problem with publishers, distributors, retailers, printers, and all the other parts of the bookselling ecosystem. While there are a few, rare authors who are capable of performing all of these functions – basically gnawing their books out of whole logs with their teeth – most writers can't, and even the ones who can, don't want to:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

When early internet boosters spoke of disintermediation, what they mostly meant was that it would be harder for intermediaries to capture those relationships – between sellers and buyers, creators and audiences, workers and customers. As Rebecca Giblin and I wrote in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, intermediaries in every sector rely on chokepoints, narrows where they can erect tollbooths:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

When chokepoints exist, they multiply up and down the supply chain. In the golden age of physical, recorded music, you had several chokepoints that reinforced one another. Limited radio airwaves gave radio stations power over record labels, who had to secretly, illegally bid for prime airspace ("payola"). Retail consolidation – the growth of big record chains – drove consolidation in the distributors who sold to the chains, and the more concentrated distributors became, the more they could squeeze retailers, which drove even more consolidation in record stores. The bigger a label was, the more power it had to shove back against the muscle of the stores and the distributors (and the pressing plants, etc). Consolidation in labels also drove consolidation in talent agencies, whose large client rosters gave them power to resist the squeeze from the labels. Consolidation in venues drives consolidation in ticketing and promotion – and vice-versa.

But there's two parties to this supply chain who can't consolidate: musicians and their fans. With limits on "sectoral bargaining" (where unions can represent workers against all the companies in a sector), musicians' unions were limited in their power against key parts of the supply chain, so the creative workers who made the music were easy pickings for labels, talent reps, promoters, ticketers, venues, retailers, etc. Music fans are diffused and dispersed, and organized fan clubs were usually run by the labels, who weren't about to allow those clubs to be used against the labels.

This is a perfect case-study in the problems of powerful intermediaries, who move from facilitator to parasite, paying workers less while degrading their products, and then charge customers more for those enshittified products.

The excitement about "disintermediation" wasn't so much about eliminating intermediaries as it was about disciplining them. If there were lots of ways to market a product or service, sell it, collect payment for it, and deliver it, then the natural inclination of intermediaries to turn predator would be curbed by the difficulty of corralling their prey into chokepoints.

Now that we're a quarter century on from the Napster Wars, we can see how that worked out. Decades of failure to enforce antitrust law allowed a few companies to effectively capture the internet, buying out rivals who were willing to sell, and bankrupting those who wouldn't with illegal tactics like predatory pricing (think of Uber losing $31 billion by subsidizing $0.41 out of every dollar they charged for taxi rides for more than a decade).

The market power that platforms gained through consolidation translated into political power. When a few companies dominate a sector, they're able to come to agreement on common strategies for dealing with their regulators, and they've got plenty of excess profits to spend on those strategies. First and foremost, platforms used their power to get more power, lobbying for even less antitrust enforcement. Additionally, platforms mobilized gigantic sums to secure the right to screw customers (for example, by making binding arbitration clauses in terms of service enforceable) and workers (think of the $225m Uber and Lyft spent on California's Prop 22, which formalized their worker misclassification swindle).

So big platforms were able to insulate themselves from the risk of competition ("five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four" – Tom Eastman), and from regulation. They were also able to expand and mobilize IP law to prevent anyone from breaking their chokepoints or undoing the abuses that these enabled. This is a good place to get specific about how Prime Video works.

There's two ways to get Prime videos: over an app, or in your browser. Both of these streams are encrypted, and that's really important here, because of a law – Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act – which makes it really illegal to break this kind of encryption (commonly called "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). Practically speaking, that means that if a company encrypts its videos, no one is allowed to do anything to those videos, even things that are legal, without the company's permission, because doing all those legal things requires breaking the DRM, and breaking the DRM is a felony (five years in prison, $500k fine, for a first offense).

Copyright law actually gives subscribers to services like Prime a lot of rights, and it empowers businesses that offer tools to exercise those rights. Back in 1976, Sony rolled out the Betamax, the first major home video recorder. After an eight-year court battle, the Supreme Court weighed in on VCRs and ruled that it was legal for all of us to record videos at home, both to watch them later, and to build a library of our favorite shows. They also ruled that it was legal for Sony – and by that time, every other electronics company – to make VHS systems, even if those systems could be used in ways that violated copyright because they were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" (letting you tape shows off your TV).

Now, this was more than a decade before the DMCA – and its prohibition on breaking DRM – passed, but even after the DMCA came into effect, there was a lot of media that didn't have DRM, so a new generation of tech companies were able to make tools that were "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and that didn't have to break any DRM to do it.

Think of the Ipod and Itunes, which, together, were sold as a way to rip CDs (which weren't encrypted), and play them back from both your desktop computer and a wildly successful pocket-sized portable device. Itunes even let you stream from one computer to another. The record industry hated this, but they couldn't do anything about it, thanks to the Supreme Court's Betamax ruling.

Indeed, they eventually swallowed their bile and started selling their products through the Itunes Music Store. These tracks had DRM and were thus permanently locked to Apple's ecosystem, and Apple immediately used that power to squeeze the labels, who decided they didn't like DRM after all, and licensed all those same tracks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store, whose slogan was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me":

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/02/01/amazons-anti-drm-tee/

Apple played a funny double role here. In marketing Itunes/Ipods ("Rip, Mix, Burn"), they were the world's biggest cheerleaders for all the things you were allowed to do with copyrighted works, even when the copyright holder objected. But with the Itunes Music Store and its mandatory DRM, the company was also one of the world's biggest cheerleaders for wrapping copyrighted works in a thin skin of IP that would allow copyright holders to shut down products like the Ipod and Itunes.

Microsoft, predictably enough, focused on the "lock everything to our platform" strategy. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer went on record calling every Ipod owner a "thief" and arguing that every record company should wrap music in Microsoft's Zune DRM, which would allow them to restrict anything they didn't like, even if copyright allowed it (and would also give Microsoft the same abusive leverage over labels that they famously exercised over Windows software companies):

https://web.archive.org/web/20050113051129/http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39124642,00.htm

In the end, Amazon's approach won. Apple dropped DRM, and Microsoft retired the Zune and shut down its DRM servers, screwing anyone who'd ever bought a Zune track by rendering that music permanently unplayable.

Around the same time as all this was going on, another company was making history by making uses of copyrighted works that the law allowed, but which the copyright holders hated. That company was Tivo, who products did for personal video recorders (PVRs) what Apple's Ipod did for digital portable music players. With a Tivo, you could record any show over cable (which was too expensive and complicated to encrypt) and terrestrial broadcast (which is illegal to encrypt, since those are the public's airwaves, on loan to the TV stations).

That meant that you could record any show, and keep it forever. What's more, you could very easily skip through ads (and rival players quickly emerged that did automatic ad-skipping). All of this was legal, but of course the cable companies and broadcasters hated it. Like Ballmer, TV execs called Tivo owners "thieves."

But Tivo didn't usher in the ad-supported TV apocalypse that furious, spittle-flecked industry reps insisted it would. Rather, it disciplined the TV and cable operators. Tivo owners actually sought out ads that were funny and well-made enough to go viral. Meanwhile, every time the industry decided to increase the amount of advertising in a show, they also increased the likelihood that their viewers would seek out a Tivo, or worse, one of those auto-ad-skipping PVRs.

Given all the stink that TV execs raised over PVRs, you'd think that these represented a novel threat. But in fact, the TV industry's appetite for ads had been disciplined by viewers' access to new technology since 1956, when the first TV remotes appeared on the market (executives declared that anyone who changed the channel during an ad-break was a thief). Then came the mute button. Then the wireless remote. Meanwhile, a common VCR use-case – raised in the Supreme Court case – was fast-forwarding ads.

At each stage, TV adapted. Ads in TV shows represented a kind of offer: "Will you watch this many of these ads in return for a free TV show?" And the remote, the mute button, the wireless remote, the VCR, the PVR, and the ad-skipping PVR all represented a counter-offer. As economists would put it, the ability of viewers to make these counteroffers "shifted the equilibrium." If viewers had no defensive technology, they might tolerate more ads, but once they were able to enforce their preferences with technology, the industry couldn't enshittify its product to the liminal cusp of "so many ads that the viewer is right on the brink of turning off the TV (but not quite)."

This is the same equilibrium-shifting dynamic that we see on the open web, where more than 50% of users have installed an ad-blocker. The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

TV remotes, PVRs and ad-blockers are all examples of "adversarial interoperability" – a new product that plugs into an existing one, extending or modifying its functions without permission from (or even over the objections of) the original manufacturer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interop creates a powerful disciplining force on platform owners. Once a user grows so frustrated with a product's enshittification that they research, seek out, acquire and learn to use an adversarial interop tool, it's really game over. The printer owner who figures out where to get third-party ink is gone forever. Every time a company like HP raises its prices, they have to account for the number of customers who will finally figure out how to use generic ink and never, ever send another cent to HP.

This is where DMCA 1201 comes into play. Once a product is skinned with DRM, its manufacturers gain the right to prevent you from doing legal things, and can use the public's courts and law-enforcement apparatus to punish you for trying. Take HP: as soon as they started adding DRM to their cartridges, they gained the legal power to shut down companies that cloned, refilled or remanufactured their cartridges, and started raising the price of ink – which today sits at more than $10,000/gallon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Using third party ink in your printer isn't illegal (it's your printer, right?). But making third party ink for your printer becomes illegal once you have to break DRM to do so, and so HP gets to transform tinted water into literally the most expensive fluid on Earth. The ink you use to print your kid's homework costs more than vintage Veuve Cliquot or sperm from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred.

Adversarial interoperability is a powerful tool for shifting the equilibrium between producers, intermediaries and buyers. DRM is an even more powerful way of wrenching that equilibrium back towards the intermediary, reducing the share that buyers and sellers are able to eke out of the transaction.

Prime Video, of course, is delivered via an app, which means it has DRM. That means that subscribers don't get to exercise the rights afforded to them by copyright – only the rights that Amazon permits them to have. There's no Tivo for Prime, because it would have to break the DRM to record the shows you stream from Prime. That allows Prime to pull all kinds of shady shit. For example, every year around this time, Amazon pulls popular Christmas movies from its free-to-watch tier and moves them into pay-per-view, only restoring them in the spring:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vudu/comments/1bpzanx/looks_like_amazon_removed_the_free_titles_from/

And of course, Prime sticks ads in its videos. You can't skip these ads – not because it's technically challenging to make a 30-second advance button for a video stream, and doing so wouldn't violate anyone's copyright – but because Amazon doesn't permit you to do so, and the fact that the video is wrapped in DRM makes it a felony to even try.

This means that Amazon gets to seek a different equilibrium than TV companies have had to accept since 1956 and the invention of the TV remote. Amazon doesn't have to limit the quantity, volume, and invasiveness of its ads to "less the amount that would drive our subscribers to install and use an ad-skipping plugin." Instead, they can shoot for the much more lucrative equilibrium of "so obnoxious that the viewer is almost ready to cancel their subscription (but not quite)."

That's pretty much exactly how Kelly Day, the Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, put it to the Financial Times: they're increasing the number of ads because "we haven’t really seen a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling":

https://www.ft.com/content/f8112991-820c-4e09-bcf4-23b5e0f190a5

At this point, attentive readers might be asking themselves, "Doesn't Amazon have to worry about Prime viewers who watch in their browsers?" After all browsers are built on open standards, and anyone can make one, so there should be browsers that can auto-skip Prime ads, right?

Wrong, alas. Back in 2017, the W3C – the organization that makes the most important browser standards – caved to pressure from the entertainment industry and the largest browser companies and created "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME), a "standard" for video DRM that blocks all adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This had the almost immediate effect of making it impossible to create an independent browser without licensing proprietary tech from Google – now a convicted monopolist! – who won't give you a license if you implement recording, ad-skipping, or any other legal (but dispreferred) feature:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

This means that for Amazon, there's no way to shift value away from the platform to you. The company has locked you in, and has locked out anyone who might offer you a better deal. Companies that know you are technologically defenseless are endlessly inventive in finding ways to make things worse for you to make things better for them. Take Youtube, another DRM-video-serving platform that has jacked up the number of ads you have to sit through in order to watch a video – even as they slash payments to performers. They've got a new move: they're gonna start showing you ads while your video is paused:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/09/20/youtube-pause-ads-rollout/75306204007/

That is the kind of fuckery you only come up with when your victory condition is "a service that's almost so bad our customers quit (but not quite)."

In Amazon's case, the math is even worse. After all, Youtube may have near-total market dominance over a certain segment of the video market, but Prime Video is bundled with Prime Delivery, which the vast majority of US households subscribe to. You have to give up a lot to cancel your Prime subscription – especially since Amazon's predatory pricing devastated the rest of the retail sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

Amazon's founding principle was "customer obsession." Ex-Amazoners tell me that this was more than an empty platitude: arguments over product design were won or lost based on whether they could satisfy the "customer obsession" litmus test. Now, everyone falls short of their ideals, but sticking to your ideals isn't merely a matter of internal discipline, of willpower. Living up to your ideals is a matter of external discipline, too. When Amazon no longer had to contend with competitors or regulators, when it was able to use DRM to control its customers and use the law to prevent them from using its products in legal ways, it lost those external sources of discipline.

Amazon suppliers have long complained of the company's high-handed treatment of the vendors who supplied it with goods. Its workers have complained bitterly and loudly about the dangerous and oppressive conditions in its warehouses and delivery vans. But Amazon's customers have consistently given Amazon high marks on quality and trustworthiness.

The reason Amazon treated its workers and suppliers badly and its customers well wasn't that it liked customers and hated workers and suppliers. Amazon was engaged in a cold-blooded calculus: it understood that treating customers well would give it control over those customers, and that this would translate market power to retain suppliers even as it ripped them off and screwed them over.

But now, Amazon has clearly concluded that it no longer needs to keep customers happy in order to retain them. Instead, it's shooting for "keeping customers so angry that they're almost ready to take their business elsewhere (but not quite)." You see this in the steady decline of Amazon product search, which preferences the products that pay the biggest bribes for search placement over the best matches:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And you see it in the steady enshittification of Prime Video. Amazon's character never changed. The company always had a predatory side. But now that monopoly and IP law have insulated it from consequences for its actions, there's no longer any reason to keep the predator in check.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 20 February 1988, 20,000 people in Manchester marched against Margaret Thatcher's homophobic section 28 law, which made it illegal for public bodies to "promote" homosexuality, which included banning schools teaching the "acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". The law was abolished in 2003, although later Conservative prime minister David Cameron voted against the complete scrapping of the ban. Subsequent Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson voted in favour of scrapping section 28, although he had previously compared gay marriage to bestiality in a book he published, and referred to gay men as "tank-topped bumboys" while working as a journalist. Learn more about homophobia and the struggle against it in the 1980s in our podcast episodes 27-29 about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Find it on every major podcast app or on our website: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/06/10/e23-25-lesbians-gays-support-the-miners/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2214108218774316/?type=3

[beardedmrbean]

The CEO of Telegram was just arrested in a parisian airport for a lack of moderation on his platform. As always, love how proactive my country is when it comes to stifling liberty.

We're just abandoning this over in France then, it had a nice long run as a slogan I guess.

Let's have a look

Pavel Durov, the co-founder and chief executive of the messaging service Telegram, was arrested and detained on Saturday, according to French media reports.

The Paris prosecutor's office told NPR that a statement about the matter will be issued on Monday.

Law enforcement agents reportedly arrested Durov at Le Bourget Airport outside of Paris, where he was arriving on his private jet from Azerbaijan, according to multiple French press reports.

AFP reported that an arrest warrant had been issued for Durov as a result of an investigation into whether he has failed to crack down on illegal activity including drug trafficking, the promotion of terrorism and fraud on Telegram.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported that the probe is examining whether Durov has refused to cooperate with law enforcement over issues including cyberscams and the spread of child pornography on Telegram.

The Russian Embassy in France released a statement saying it had asked French authorities for an explanation for Durov's detention and asked that his rights be protected and consular access be granted.

Durov, a 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire, is a dual citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates, where he runs Telegram, the Dubai-based messaging service with nearly 1 billion global users.

He is considered “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg” for in 2007 founding VKontakte, Russian for “in touch,” a Facebook copycat site that became the country’s most popular social network.

In 2013, Durov and his brother, Nikolai, launched Telegram. Pavel Durov fled Russia a year later after his refusal to hand over data on Ukrainian users of VK to Russian authorities.

When Telegram first started, cryptocurrency fanatics were quick to embrace it, and the app has since risen to become one of the most popular messaging services in the world. It has emerged as a go-to place for unfiltered updates on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Telegram has a laissez-faire approach to moderating content, which has drawn concern from researchers, who have noted how misinformation, extremism and illicit activity, like drug sales and child pornography, often goes unmoderated.

Some experts have even suspected that Telegram might have links to the Kremlin, which Durov called “inaccurate” in an interview in March with the Financial Times, the first time the reclusive CEO has spoken to the press since 2017.

On Durov’s Instagram, he is often photographed bare-chested, showing off his muscular physique in desert landscapes or posing in infinity pools.

He is regularly seen sporting all-black outfits in an apparent nod to the character Neo from the movie The Matrix.

Content on Telegram ricochets around the web when it is shared to other social networks, where it can often be subject to the content moderation rules of other platforms. But Durov has long championed Telegram as an anything-goes service, with Durov’s supporters hailing him as a free speech hero. ______________________________

Cyberscams are everywhere, got 8 new asks in my inbox since signing out last night and 6 are cyberscams, CP is a different story if that's getting a pass then that's 100% something that needs to be fixed.

I don't use telegram so I don't know what level of moderation if any exists on there, I do know that's one of the ways people get things that normally wouldn't make their way out into the world out there which is good for real information.

[javierpinme]

Lush

Pairing: Neighbor!Frankie Morales x f!reader

Word count: 4.5k

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY, minors this is not the fic for you)

Warnings: accidentally sending a friend request to your hot neighbor but oh no it’s from your sex toy app, taking some liberties with the sex toy OKAY, you don’t have to tell me how bluetooth works I’m ignoring it for the purpose of the fic, squirting, voyeurism, unprotected sex (this is fictional wrap it up irl), pussy drunk Morales, oral (f receiving), fingering, infidelity (but not our babies they could never)

Summary: You buy a sex toy and accidentally send a request to your hot neighbor to join in.

A/N: Don’t blame me. Blame @daddydindjarin. Just kidding. Don’t blame her. Give her kisses because I was inspired for the first time in a while. Also kisses to @lowlights for being my beta on this because I was so scared of this being shite. And if it is—you shut your whore mouth. Respectfully. Kidding, we’re all whores here. Also, this is loosely based on the Lush 3 toy by Lovense!

Masterlist:

The pads of your fingers slide roughly on the cardboard of your thankfully discreet package. What should have brought a shiver down your spine and warmth in your core brings you conflicting feelings instead.

It was meant to spice up your relationship when your partner got the call of their dream promotion. You supported the move completely and tried to make it work to the best of your ability.However, your partner had other plans and jumped on the first opportunity to cheat on you.

So here you are, single and with a sex toy that serves as a reminder of your failed relationship.

You sigh with a resignation that you’re going to be alone forever while opening your apartment door, until you’re brought back to the present with a little girl’s giggle.

Not just any giggle—his daughter’s giggle.

With his juxtaposition of hard and soft edges and even softer—though a little sad sometimes- chocolate brown eyes.

You hear your name echo down the hall and the pitter patter of shoes hitting the ancient carpet. You hold the package a little closer to your chest and smile at the little girl running towards you. Your knees pop when you bend down to her level.

“Well, hello to you honey bee.”

She beams with her matching dimple to her father’s at the nickname you gave her a while ago. In the way honeybees bring life to the flowers, she brings the same to everyone around her.

“We’re baking cookies.” She explains with a jump in her step.

“Oh yeah?” You smile and your heart jumps when you look up to Frankie walking from further down the hall towards you.

“Yeah, but we have to do it before your mom gets here so we have to get started.”

He opens his door and she takes no time bursting through, elated to eat sugary treats.

You’re frozen at your doorway taking in the sheen of sweat that pools from his neck down into his t-shirt. No doubt from running circles around his daughter at the park.

He lingers now that you’re both alone and waves at you with a lopsided smile, but you’re too focused on the fact that he is sucking on a hard candy, your eyes too honed in on the way his tongue pokes into his cheeks when he switches sides.

Before you get the chance to ask him out or humiliatingly go onto your knees and show him just how good you can suc-

His apartment door is already closing, with him on the other side.

You’re in trouble.

One batch of chocolate chip cookies later and way too many wet wipes on his daughter’s—well everywhere, Frankie considers turning in for the night. He plops on his couch until the game setup he bought for the guy’s night tomorrow stares at him.

They take turns hosting, sticking together after coming back from Columbia and providing support when needed. It was better than dabbling into anything illegal, especially with his drug history.

He rubs his thighs and gets up with a groan. Every bone in his body cracks, reminding him he’s not as young anymore. Sounding and looking more like his father everyday.

The mirror staring back at him with all his greys that are more pronounced since coming back. He wonders if you’d like that.

One hour later, in part because of his refusal to look at directions, he has the PlayStation and surround sound system set up. He grabs the wireless headphones and his phone to check if they’re paired when he sees a notification pop up on his phone.

LazyDaisy32 has sent you a request to connect.

He has no idea what that is so he Googles it. A quick scan of the search results makes the blood rush from his head and straight to his cock.

You stare at the package that is currently sitting on your kitchen counter and finally decide to open it.

At least there’s a solo setting and you can fantasize about your cute neighbor.

You play around with the app and adjust any levels to your preference, arousal pooling in your underwear in anticipation of later. You tap on the long distance tab, but don’t focus too long until you toss it on the couch. Dinner first, then exploring your new toy.

Completely oblivious to a certain username that you sent a request to join when tossing it.

Waiting for Frankie to accept your request.

He knows exactly what this is, pulling it from the deepest part of his memory when his ex-wife and he were still together. They thought something like this would help rekindle their romance, but no amount of toys could fix their broken marriage.

He stares wide-eyed at the request, unable to bring himself to do anything.

It couldn’t be?

Right?

He knows it isn’t 86 year old Mrs. Munchez next door because he just helped her son move her stuff into his house.

Which leaves only one person. His cock twitches to life with the barrage of images that flash through his mind. You spread out on your bed, his photographic memory aiding him when he helped set up that very bed when you first moved in.

The daisy sheets.

The toy circling around your clit in slow motions to allow the slick to flow from your entrance, your bottom lip pinched between your teeth to keep yourself quiet.

He wouldn’t let you.

His cock is already fully hard by the time he starts imagining all your moans and pleas to touch you already.

He throws his phone on his bed and resigns himself to a cold shower that doesn’t work, ultimately taking himself in hand and stroking himself to relieve the tension that’s built up.

He breathes heavily, finally giving into his fantasies about his cute neighbor, and the back of his head hits the tile when ropes of come disappear into the bottom of the tub.

He quickly cleans himself up and gets ready for bed, leaving the request in the inbox when he falls asleep.

He does a really good job of ignoring the pending alerts the first few times, but time and time again it shows up and it’s killing him at this point.

It’s made even harder when he sees you. Whether he’s helping you carry your groceries to your place or waving at him from your balcony. He over analyzes every interaction now because of that damn app, studying every downturn of your lips or the wrinkle between your brows when you come home from work at the same time.

Did you really mean to send it to him? Or did you realize your mistake and choose not to face the elephant in the room? The idea that you're ignoring it to save face makes him feel worse than you acknowledging it ever could.

Asking you out would be thrown out the window at this point and dodging every future interaction makes his stomach twist in knots just thinking about it.

He almost loses resolve one morning when you close your eyes to let the sun’s rays warm your face, his cock springing to life again of the vision of you on your back, eyes closed and enjoying how he’s making you feel.

He’d make you feel good, he thinks.

Never one to take pleasure without giving. At least one thing his ex-wife couldn’t complain about. He wants to make you feel as good as you deserve. He aches with the need.

It’s then that his fantasies break him down and he accepts the request. He throws his phone on his counter thinking that somehow he could forget what he just did.

On the contrary, it made it so much worse. 

He couldn’t resist the temptation any longer one night when he saw the reminder pop up again.

He sits on the couch, thighs spread wide staring at the blue light, and watching the toy work its magic. He could see every wave of pleasure that went through you, what level you were on at that exact moment even through the thin walls.

Just one touch and he could make you feel so good.

You huff at your inability to get off and toss your phone on the bed. You were overthinking it, but you desperately wanted to feel that release.

You want to forget about the day and only focus on your pleasure, but what usually makes you come isn’t working. And you’re about to call it a night until there’s a steady pulse thrumming through you, slowly working its way up in intensity.

You grasp the sheets in your hands and your thighs start to open wide of their own accord, chasing the pleasure that is starting to shoot through you with every needy thrust. Your arousal begins to pool onto the sheets below you, your cunt clenching around the toy and you finally feel the rumble of an orgasm starting to build. 

You should stop this. You don’t know who this anonymous person is, but your thighs start to burn at the possibility of it being Frankie.

You’re hurtling towards the edge of what might be the best orgasm you’ve had in years when the toy goes down in intensity, a steady thrumming replacing it.

“Fuck-wait.” You whine to no one.

You slam your fists on your sheets, your tits bouncing from the heaving of your chest as your clit throbs from the denial of your orgasm.

The toy vibrates against your bud but low enough that you’re kept on the precipice without any reprieve.

Frankie, whoever it is, is a tease.

You’re brought to the edge only for it to dip down a gentle hum again and again, your sheets surely ruined from how wet you are, skin glistening with sweat and god—you should have laid down a towel.

It’s embarrassing how quick he—they bring you back to that point where your toes start to curl, your cunt fluttering with every vibration and pressure on your g-spot to bring you to bliss.

“Please, please please.” You keen.

Your orgasm slams into you like a freight train, the force of it almost making the toy slip out of you as white hot pleasure forms behind your eyes, crying through the waves of pleasure coursing through your veins until your voice gives out.

It starts to hinge right on overstimulation and you breathe a sigh of relief when it slows down from a purr to nothing.

You’re reminded of your lack of towel when you move to get off the bed, the cool moisture making you cringe. You’re definitely going to have to wash your sheets.

Your thighs shake as you gather up your sheets to put in the wash, daydreaming about that neighbor of yours as you pour the laundry detergent into the machine.

The sun billows through his curtains and he turns onto his other side to fall back asleep, too tired from staying up late to hopefully have accomplished in making you come and then taking himself in hand when he denied himself as much as he could. Guilt pouring in tenfold at overstepping boundaries afterwards.

He finally relents and leaves the warmth of his bed in lieu of making a hot cup of coffee to combat the cool air.

The spring air delicately kisses his face when he pulls his slide door open with his cup of joe when he sees you already out on yours, your attention being directed towards him when you hear the pull of the door. He freezes for a second, but your smile instantly relaxes him.

“Good morning!” You grin.

There’s a glow to you this morning, any tension you were carrying the day before is gone and his chest puffs in pride at the realization that he may have had a role in that.

Fuck, he’s hooked.

“Mornin’. You look like you slept well.” He tests the waters.

You beam at him like you’re both in on some secret and he gets flustered that you might have discovered that it was him, but relief washes over him when you don’t look angry.

“Slept like a baby.”

"Oh yeah?" He darkly chuckles, his arousal pulling him to the railing of his balcony to be closer and preens when you mirror his steps.

"Yeah, woke up pleasantly sore actually." You breathily answer.

"Workout or something like that?"

"Something like that." He gapes at the wink thrown at him before you walk inside your apartment, but there's no way he's imagining the extra sway in your hips.

Guilt gets the best of him and he ignores it for a little bit much to your dismay, not that he would know.

You couldn’t stop thinking about it. How good you felt and how good you slept after cleaning yourself in the shower. It was the best sleep you’ve had in a long time actually, but the only thing that was missing was Frankie.

You shake your head to clear that train of thought, but he was the one you thought of late at night. Not even for a sexual reason—okay yes that too. But just being surrounded by him, his soft belly shaping against your body like it was made for you.

You didn’t mind your secret toy admirer and after a process of elimination you’re almost sure it’s Frankie. The longest control range is 30 feet and you live in a quiet elderly building. You're confident they don't have the app or even know how to use bluetooth.

Just not sure enough to put it out in the universe and be wrong.

A week later you both walk towards your respective apartments and you look exhausted. A bottle of wine in hand and some Thai takeout miraculously balanced in your other hand, he decides right there and then if that toy comes up he’s going to make you boneless.

One glass of wine later—or two. You’re feeling more relaxed, the tension from work rinsing off with your shower.

You throw a t-shirt on to get ready for bed and glance at your nightstand drawer.

It couldn’t hurt right?

Your cunt clenches around nothing.

You shiver and pull the toy out, excitement and arousal shooting up your spine in anticipation.

You hop on your bed and throw your t-shirt off, rolling your nipples between your index fingers and thumbs until they peak at attention. You shimmy a pillow under your hips and insert the toy, working yourself up slowly.

It doesn’t take long for the toy to change up its rhythm and your soft moan billows through the otherwise silent room.

Relief floods through you at not having to think after such a long day of making decisions and you get to just enjoy the moment. Your body sinks into your plush sheets, a purr crawling its way up your throat and the pads of your fingers slide up your bare thighs, tracing the steps of how Frankie would touch you.

You’re deep into your fantasy of him and reality starts to blur, moans spilling out where you would normally try to stay quiet. You gasp when the toy hits just right and your inner walls flutter around it.

“Oh go-Frankie.”

He tosses his phone on his coffee table like a kid caught red-handed in the cookie jar and throws his hands up until he realizes you’re not in his living room. He hears his name again through the thin walls and he jumps to action, almost forgetting to grab his phone from the table in the scuffle.

Either something is really wrong or you found out it was him and he’s really in for it now, but when you call his name again outside of your apartment door—he has to be sure.

You forgot to lock your front door, but with how your day went it wasn’t on your list of priorities. Before you get the chance to take in that your door opened it slams just as quickly.

The layout of both your apartments are the same so he gets a front and center view of you all spread out and your core glistening in the golden hour light that he just freezes. You look surprised but the prettiest moan comes out making him realize he hadn’t turned off the toy from the app during the rush to your apartment.

He reaches into his back pocket to pull up the app, turning it off right when you were on the crescendo of a bone-tingling orgasm only for it to be ripped from you.

You whine and grasp the sheets between your fingers while your clit throbs from its robbed attention. You squeeze your thighs on instinct and Frankie interprets that as his cue to leave in his embarrassment, but you say his name with such reverence that he stays planted in front of your bedroom waiting with bated breath what your next move is.

He’s surprised when you smile with all softness behind it and he can’t help but match it, no matter how flustered he feels.

“So it was you.”

Heat floods from his cheeks to the tips of his ears and he’s about to go on his knees to apologize until he notices the tinge of playfulness in your voice and the way you arch your brow at him.

You don’t let him hang onto his humiliation for too long, giving him some reprieve by curling your finger and motioning him to your room when he embarrassingly nods.

“Well that’s a relief. I’m supposed to help Rodger down the hall with his computer and 70 is just a little too old for me.” You chuckle.

“Rodger wishes.” He huffs and you snort at his retort as every pusle thrumming through your cunt collides with every step Frankie takes on the hardwood.

“No, really. Have you seen you?” He exasperates.

“Why don’t you tell me?” You grab his hand to pull him on top of you and he sits on the bed watching you with awe.

“How ‘bout I show you? If you’ll let me? Then we can talk about all of this because I’ve been trying to find the guts to ask you out since you moved in.” He strokes your thighs in mindless circles and a shiver goes through you.

It was on the tip of your tongue that he basically skipped all of that when he helped get you off, but you nod.

“I love the enthusiasm, but I’m gonna need to hear you say it.” He teases with a kiss on your calf, looking at you with all the mirth behind it.

“Yes plea-fuck me Frankie.” Your cunt clamps around the toy as he walks towards you, his once beautiful brown eyes now blown out with lust as he hovers at the foot of your bed.

He shushes your pleas and towers over you, taking his time to admire your features now that he has permission to. He doesn’t crash his lips against yours like you expected he would much to your chagrin.

His nose bumps yours and you chase his lips when he pulls away from you with a smirk. He darkly chuckles as he peppers your face with kisses everywhere except where you crave him.

“I’ve been imagining every pretty noise you’d make for me so forgive me for wanting to take my time with you.” He explains with a lower octave than you’ve heard come out of those plush lips.

You lock your leg around his lower waist and pull him down to you, all restraint thrown out the window and kiss him. Holding onto him like the ground below you was going to implode if you let go. He groans when your bare core rubs against his bulge, your wetness already seeping through the fabric.

You involuntarily gasp when he bumps the head of his cock against your clit and he takes the opportunity to lick into your mouth, deepening the kiss until you’re dizzy and leaking down your inner thighs.

He pulls away from your swollen lips and smirks before he trails open mouthed kisses down your neck to your collarbone, licking the salt of your sweat on the way to your core.

The hairs of his moustache tickle against your breast when he laps at your nipple, suckling around the peak until it stands at attention, releasing it with a pop when it is thoroughly wet from his saliva. He gives equal attention to your other breast with his mouth, groaning when his calloused thumb and forefinger roll your spit-saturated nipple between his fingers.

Once you’re all perked and glistening for him, he makes his way down to where you’re aching for him, peppering kisses and licking the beads of sweat that form.

He bruisingly grips your thighs and tugs you lower on the bed so he can kneel comfortably on the carpet. You breathily whimper when he nips your inner thigh, lapping the sting away with his tongue. He presses his face against your mound and inhales deeply like a worshiper to an altar.

He opens your legs wider and the heel of your feet dig into his back to encourage him to make a move and he could never deny you.

He kitten licks your clit until more arousal pools from your entrance, swirling his tongue around your bud when your thighs twitch around his face.

“N-n-not gonna last long, Frankie.” You moan.

His eyes meet yours from above your mound and you don’t have to see his mouth to know he has a shit-eating grin when he wraps his mouth around your throbbing clit and sucks hard.

Your inner walls clamp around nothing until he fills it with one, then two fingers, curling them in a come hither motion until you embarrassingly fall apart quickly underneath him and his lips part as your face pinches in pleasure because of him.

Your chest heaves as your orgasm fades to a rhythmic pulsing and when Frankie kisses up to your eye-level you’re about to apologize because oh my god, it’s all over his chin-

“That was so much better than what I imagined, baby. Good girl. Fuck, you soaked me.”

He slams a bruising kiss against your lips and you open wide for him to push your come into your mouth so you can taste yourself. You toy with the hem of his shirt and he takes the hint, pulling it off and throwing it somewhere in your room.

He hastily unbuckles his belt and you swat at his hands to take off his pants and boxers, the whisper of his zipper unfastening and your collective heavy pants filling the room.

Holy shit.

How are you going to fit that inside you?

His cocks spring out of his boxers, the head beading with pre-come and twitching the longer you gape at it.

“If you’re not ready-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” You grab his shoulders and pull him on top of you, locking your legs around his waist. He takes his damn time thrusting his cock between your folds until it’s soaked in your arousal and come.

“Ready?” He presses a chaste kiss on your lips when you nod and bites your shoulder as he breaches your entrance inch by inch.

You both groan at how tight you feel around him and he thrusts in short bursts until he’s buried to the hilt to not hurt you. Gone is the rush of the moment, soft touches and praises of how long the two of you have waited for this filling it.

“Frankie?” You eventually tap your foot on his ass when he doesn’t move, a muffled grunt releases from on your neck as he breathes you in.

“Move, baby.”

He lifts his head up to look into your eyes and devastatingly smirks. “Yes, ma’am.”

His first thrust devastates you, a sob ripping out of your throat when he continues to hone in on that spot that makes your walls clamp around him.

You whimper and bury your fingers into his unruly curls, the tinge of pain from you gripping on his strands prompting him to thrust at a bruising pace. He kisses your lips and sucks your bottom lip between his teeth before he brings his hand between your bodies to circle around your clit.

“Please come, ‘m not gonna last.”

The slow circles on your bud has your cunt seizing around him with stars forming behind your eyes as your thighs tremble with the intensity of his hips. It edges on overstimulation, but you want him to feel as good as he made you feel.

“Inside, Frankie. Makin’ me feel so good baby.” You coo and slide the pads of your fingers up and down his back.

He whimpers into your ear as you pinch his earlobe between your teeth, releasing a breathy moan as his balls pull up and ropes of his cum spill inside of you, leaking onto the mattress below you.

You gently thrust up into him to prolong his climax until he begins to soften inside of you, the two of you whispering praises to each other.

You wince from the emptiness as he pulls out of you, a kiss being delivered to your forehead in apology, and you admire his barely there ass as he walks to your bathroom. You hear water running as you stretch your muscles, feeling sated and pleasantly sore.

Frankie emerges from the bathroom with a damp washcloth that he uses to clean up the mess, kissing your ankle when you hiss from the overstimulation as he gently rubs through your folds.

He tosses the washcloth on your nightstand and laughter fills the silent room when he plops next to you, pulling you in closer and tangling your legs together. He strokes the back of his fingers on your cheekbone and nudges his nose against yours, pressing light kisses on your cheeks.

“I’d really like to do this again sometime. Maybe some dinner first.”

“What makes you think I’m going to let you leave this bed now that I know how good I have it?” You smirk and coax him back in by wrapping your fingers around the back of his neck.

Like hell you are going to leave this spot.

[mariacallous]

A jury in December found that Google broke US antitrust laws through deals and billing rules that gave an unfair boost to its Google Play app store. On Thursday, a judge began laying out how Google could be forced to change its business as a penalty. The remedies under consideration could drive the most consequential shakeup ever to Google’s dominance over the Android universe.

Fortnite video game developer Epic Games, which beat Google in the trial that saw a jury declare the Play store an illegal monopoly, is demanding that federal judge James Donato ban Google from contracts that deter competition. Epic also wants Google to be forced to help competing stores list more apps, giving them a competitive boost. The changes could enable Epic to realize its long-held plan to increase revenue by processing in-game purchases in Fortnite and other titles without using Google’s payment system, and marketing games via its own app store.

Google contends that Epic’s demands would threaten its users’ security and impair the businesses of partners, including Android device makers and app developers. The search company is appealing the jury’s verdict, which could delay the rollout of any penalties for many years—or void them altogether. But Google over the past few years already has had to make some costly changes in Europe and Asia due to court losses and new laws affecting the Play store, and a trial with Epic is currently underway in Australia.

“I want to be clear: Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” Donato told Epic and Google at a hearing in San Francisco on Thursday. He explained that Google’s loss requires him to pry open the company’s grip on the Android ecosystem in a way that ends Google’s illegal monopoly and also removes its ill-gotten gains from years of unfair dominance.

That would mean major changes for the industry that has built up around Google’s Android operating system—and potentially more choices for consumers. It could require Google investing cash into new projects to make things right, Donato said.

Donato expressed frustration with Google’s claims that any changes would be bad for consumers and other businesses. “To jump up and down and say the new way is going to be a world no one wants to live in, it’s unfounded,” he said. But he also spent hours in the hearing quizzing two economists, one appearing on behalf of each company, about how to craft penalties for Google without being unreasonable.

Among Epic’s requests is that Google be barred from striking deals that prevent or discourage companies from working with alternatives to its app store. In the past the company has required hardware companies that want to offer Google Play on their devices to agree not to work with or promote alternative app stores. That prevented most consumers from ever seeing other app stores, since most device makers want to offer Google’s app store, because it is the largest.

Rival app stores such as those from Amazon and Samsung also have struggled to persuade developers to list their apps outside of Google Play, because maintaining apps in multiple stores takes extra work. To even the playing field, Epic proposes that Google be required for six years to provide rival stores a way to list apps that are hosted on Google Play. That would allow people to browse alternative stores without feeling they are missing out on popular apps, giving the store a better chance of success in the long term.

“Rival app stores [would] have incentives to sign up developers so that they can get revenue streams and so that they're not dead in the water when this provision expires,” Douglas Bernheim, a Stanford University economist testifying on behalf of Epic, told Donato. “Google [would have] incentives to continue to sign up developers so that they're not at a disadvantage.”

Matthew Gentzkow, a Stanford economist on Google’s side, responded that developers could suffer harm if their apps appeared in alternative stores that have more relaxed content policies than Google’s, because in that case their apps could appear next to, say, pornography apps that Google bars. “It could undermine their brand and reputation with users,” Gentzkow said.

Donato also raised questions about how to ease Google’s requirement that apps in the Play store use Google’s billing system to process payments, one of the rules that triggered Epic’s lawsuit. And he expressed a desire to find a way to “reduce the friction,” as he called it, that users face when trying to download an app from an app store other than Play on Android devices. Google’s operating system has been found to interrupt the process with a series of warnings that bypassing Play could trigger security issues, potentially deterring people from following through with a download.

Donato is expected to hear final arguments from Google and Epic in August. He told attorneys that he would then officially issue penalties by the Labor Day holiday in September, but then corrected himself, saying they would come “promptly.”

[house-of-mirrors]

I posted the fic about the Bazaar as a modern publishing company. Now I need to write about modern AU calendar council. Specifically thinking about cyberpunk dystopia (not necessarily the neon future!)

January maintains a free online library full of texts and articles, fighting against the paywall culture of academia and censorship. Also a skilled hacker targeting energy systems to draw attention to infrastructure vulnerabilities caused by the failings of neoliberalism.

February leaks information to the worldwide media at the most opportune times to incite unrest. On the side, she's quite good at online gaming tournaments and has an intense rivalry with user knifeandcandle.

March is an online persona maintained by several individuals to reduce the risk of compromise in the great game which has been taken to the next level by technology. Behind the development of several "leaky" apps, spyware, and wiretaps.

April has no online presence, off the grid for her safety after her role in a costly attack to physically destroy servers at powerful companies. In a world of increased surveillance, she lurks somewhere outside the city with no cameras. You can, however, contact her on clear nights over radio waves, with encoded transmissions.

May is rumored to be one of the very first shareholders for Bazaar Publishing. This aside, has a telehealth webpage that's the height of the spiral with redirecting links, popups, eyestrain colors, and recommendations that seem too personal. Ads pop up during your regular browsing, similar to seeing the merry gentleman about. It's nearly impossible to get an actual appointment unless they email you first, confirming a stay you never reserved. The hotel has bowling alley carpeting and neon lights. I feel like it should have an arcade.

June is the founder of a secretive engineering and technology startup, rumored to be taking funding from shady sources in the private sector. Little is known about her wherabouts or activities, except her last known IP address was at a testing site on a remote island.

July is a whistleblower, leaking confidential documents and warning the public about transactions and political schemes that can lead to their destruction. Fighting a constant war against misinformation, in which she works closely with September.

August is active on twitter and reddit. I don't need to say more. He also promotes accessibility in technology and the web.

September has a podcast and is constantly finding new ways to bypass censors and promote truthful news sources. He runs a blog dedicated to history and culture, where he also shares his poetry. This man is so anti-advertisements.

October is a merciless hacker. Rumors persist she's so skilled and uncatchable because she found a way to project her consciousness into the computer. Several of the most costly ransomware and DDOS attacks bear her signature.

November operates on the black market, overseeing illegal commerce. She works not only in arms dealing and contraband, but in getting restricted supplies to places that need help.

December is an enigmatic figure of the dark web that no one has ever seen or heard, someone you can't contact but rather contacts you through heavily encrypted txt files, identifiable only through a borzoi icon. Some say they're just a myth or a virus. Some say they're an alien, tapping into satellites.

[cloudykino]

ok guys new devsisters messup just dropped!

in the span of one day all of the my cookie run subsidiary is GONE

what happened? today all of the employees working at the my cookie run & cookie run kids subsidiaries were all fired, this was about 40 people

they told the press they were being relocated to other departments but, they lied!

they promoted a few over holiday but they were all given a notice today at 1pm, told to give all their equipment by 6pm, and to not come to the company tomorrow, which is also illegal since they DID NOT give a one month notice, here's a screenshot of employee statements and stuff cuz this is unreal

this affects the mobile apps of my cookie run that were in development, the tv show and possibly the webcomics as well if they are not released

the employees had TWO TO THREE years working in these projects!!!!

(these screenshots come from an app called blind where verified employees can give reviews on the companies they work on)

this is HUGE messup on devsisters' part, while it was likely done to lower costs they are absolutely breaking the law and might even get sued

while i was writing this apparently a member of the national assembly or something in korea became aware of this they are absolutely fucked!

sources:

twitter post | naver article

[jiminsass-istant]

tae already asked them to get out of their imagination

Then the next day he regretted it and tell them that jk is sleeping next to him

And who told you that he regretted it? Or did you come to that conclusion yourself?

Thanks for your ask anon. I've been thinking of doing a deep dive on Tae's personality for some time now.

IS TAE-A-KOOKER?

How is Tae telling them to get out of their imagination and telling jk is sleeping next to him related?

If he calls tkker's to get out of imagination, doesn't that already establish that jk is his bro and friend? Have we not seen jk and tae sleeping next to each other on camera before?

Do you think Tae, jimin and jk have the time to do the mental gymnastics shippers do?

When Tae kept Jimin around for more than half of his fan meet, was he promoting Vmin then? He made Jimin sit down in front of the whole crowd and made everybody sing HBD. If I didn't know they were friends, I would think it was boyfriend behaviour. And mind you, Vmin is a more significant ship than TK in Korea.

🔆Do you think Tae reads the multiple delusional threads in english on insta and twitter? He can't read medium to advanced level English, period.

🔆Tae has always been an impulsive person since the beginning. Be it interviews, saying unhinged stuff, being romantic towards members for no reason, revealing jk-jm are hanging out in the dead of the night. Entering jk's room during a live when JK was naked in Osaka. Asking James Corden to touch Jimin's thighs on national television, no..INSISTING on it multiple times while RM just sat there embarassed. You forgot when he went live while being drunk with Jimin, WHILE JK was already live? Hybe intern must have pulled their own hairs when that happened.

_🔆The taekook page Tae recently posted from has military pics from private sources, completely illegal to be posted in public. While Tae and the members clearly do not want their privacy invaded during military. (Hybe almost sued camp app). If Tae had checked the page once, he wouldn't have posted. But man has no media training recently, so he posted without even checking the source. The same way he posts from fansites, airport pics, posts AI pics etc.

Can you imagine any other BTS member being that impulsive? Apart from JK? No. That's why they are 'partners in crime'. Always getting scolded together.

You need to understand the dynamics members have with each other from official content. Not from shipping spaces or solo spaces.

Now, let's look at some of the early impressions of Tae on the members -

- 'alien','we used to fight a lot' in Jimin's words

-'i knew he wouldn't listen to me' - RM when he met V

-'difficult to understand' - Suga

- ' in his own world' - Jin

But Jungkook -

' helped me get out of my shell'

And finally me-

" Tae reminds me of my cousin who people around me used to think was a 'special kid' because of his weird behaviour, but he was perfectly normal, just different "

And let's not forget this reaction by knetz when V was singing along to a song of a group he liked during an encore. People accused him of making fun of the song, when it was actually one of his favourite songs. He was just so lost in singing with exaggerated expressions,that too on national tv, on stage- that people mistook it for rude behaviour and he was harrased by netizens.

I cannot count the no. of times Tae has been misunderstood at this point.

Why is Tae like this?

Would jhope post from a random account without checking? Would RM? Would Jimin ever do that?? No. They are the real adults of the group. Taekook are the children. Tae - the prime trouble maker, Jungkook who gets in the flow with him.

I unfortunately also have to remind you of the durag incident Tae had during his live. Do you think he did that to offend a community? He is simply ignorant. (Which is a problem). Isn't that a much more scandalous thing than posting from a shipper account? Just because he makes mistakes, doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable. And i do INSIST that his manager needs to organize media lessons for him ASAP.

FINAL THOUGHTS-

It is clear as day, he's just impulsive and doesn't have the intentions you are making up in your head. Stop behaving like tkkers, anon. They are the worst breed, don't stoop to their level.

The members took their time to understand him, and so should you. No one is a saint, but Tae has never come across as a vile person who would sabotage his own group member. He's impulsive, mischievous, different, creative and very talented.

In suga's words from suchwita-"Taehyung would sulk when he's not given what he wants, so we started fulfilling all his wishes".

Why would he want people to hate on Jimin, lol? It's so funny to even think of that. Haven't you seen their love for each other throughout the years? It honestly surpasses TK bond. Infact do you know why V said ' i only have you' and ' you were the one who cried with me' to Jimin? Because jimin understands him. Even better than jungkook. I have even seen instances when Tae is ignored during conversations, but then jimin is listening to him, drawing everyone's attention to Tae. Jimin is precious to Tae, ngl.

And why would he want beef with Jimin when they all want to get back together in 2025? If they had some issues, wouldn't RM interfere first, as the leader? Why the hell is Tae always texting jimin, searching up Jimin AI pics, asking to be in a reel with Jimin? Drinking with Jimin? Why does Jimin want Tae at his own fan event? Why is Jimin feeling up Tae's torso when he learnt he's working out? There's literally no evidence of Tae being vile to Jimin. You think they are that good actors?

Believe me, vminkook don't give a fuck about the delulu shipping discourses or vile shippers. You know why? Because they are not the ARMY that they recognize. Hybe or the members will never address shippers. They will show bromance for sure, but no direct call outs.

But you know who directly addressed shippers? The only one to ever do that? KIM TAEHYUNG.

And he had shut them down!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jennifer Rankin at The Guardian:

French judicial authorities on Sunday extended the detention of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, after his arrest at a Paris airport over alleged offences related to the messaging app. His arrest at the Le Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday was the latest extraordinary twist in the career of one of the world’s most influential tech icons. The detention of Durov, 39, was extended beyond Sunday night by the investigating magistrate who is handling the case, according to a source close to the investigation. This initial period of detention for questioning can last up to a maximum of 96 hours. When this phase of detention ends, the judge can decide to free him or press charges and remand in further custody. French investigators had issued a warrant for Durov’s arrest as part of an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organised crime, promotion of terrorism and cyberbullying.

Durov is accused of failing to take action to curb the criminal use of his platform and was stopped after arriving in Paris from Baku on his private jet on Saturday night. “Enough of Telegram’s impunity,” said one investigator who expressed surprise that Durov flew to Paris knowing he was a wanted man. In a statement on Sunday evening, Telegram said: “Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.

[...] Durov lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based, and holds citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He recently said he had tried to settle in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before choosing Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and “neutrality”. In the UAE, Telegram faces little pressure to moderate its content, while western governments are trying to crack down on hate speech, disinformation, sharing of images of child abuse and other illegal content.

Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging and allows users to create channels to disseminate information to followers. Especially popular in the former Soviet Union, the app is widely used by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his circle, as well as politicians throughout Ukraine, to release information about the war. It is also one of the few places where Russians can get unfiltered information about the conflict, after the Kremlin tightened media controls in the wake of the full-scale invasion. Its apparently unbreakable encryption has made Telegram a haven for extremists and conspiracy theorists. Investigative journalists at the central European news site VSquare said it had become the “‘go-to’ tool for Russian propagandists, both leftwing and rightwing radicals, American QAnon and conspiracy theorists,” concluding it was an “ecosystem for the radicalisation of opinion”. The app was also used widely by far-right agitators plotting anti-immigration rallies in England and Northern Ireland in the wake of the stabbing of three children at a Southport dance class last month. The anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate concluded that Telegram had become the “app of choice” for racists and violent extremists and “a cesspit of antisemitic content” with minimal moderation or effort from the app to curb extremist content.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France over the weekend based on an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organised crime, promotion of terrorism and cyberbullying, and child sex abuse material (aka child pornography) on the social media app.

Telegram is popular in Russia and most of the former Soviet countries, and in the west, a hub for far-right conspiracy theorists.

The arrest of Durov has ZERO to do with “free speech”, despite right-wing spin claiming otherwise.

See Also:

The Guardian: What is Telegram and why has its founder Pavel Durov been arrested?

CNN: A Russian Elon Musk with 100 biological children: Meet Pavel Durov

NBC News: Telegram founder Durov's arrest is part of a larger investigation into alleged 'complicity' in child exploitation and drug trafficking

[we-fucked-up-evolution]

not to be boomer adjacent but... what is it with all the ads i see on any website or app being scams now??

it's a rotating cast of fake celebrity endorsements, casino games (illegal where i live i might add), health & beauty scams, rinse & repeat.

i keep reporting them to facebook (where i saw an ad with people having sex too, wtf) and facebook keeps being like "whoops sorry we can't remove this it doesn't violate our policy" but IT DOES! fake celebrity endorsements, porn and scam products are not allowed on your platform, i know because i read your dumb TOS for my own dumb job!

and blocking these ads doesn' work either, because more pages promoting that same ad keep popping up and being made all the time... i'm glad my parents and grandparents don't keep up with the internet in general, because i know what they would be sold, and how much money they would lose... i realise ads have to exist to keep the internet afloat right now, but it's a travesty there's not more control... and that's not even getting into political ads, religious ads, ads targeted at kids, ads whose purpose is to make you feel bad so you'll buy a cure...

[misc-obeyme]

YOUR MIND IS *CHEF'S KISS*, I NEVER EVEN KNEW RIGGED BETTING WAS A THING/TERM. THAT FITS SO WELLL OHMYGODDD I LOVE IT, I'M HAPPY YOU LIKED THE SCENARIO

I wish I'd get off my butt and get back into drawing or writing BECAUSE I NEED THIS TO BE REAL. I have a whole notes app full of ideas and snippets for things I'd like to create, but work is way too draining (but working means more spending money so.. tough... BUT I'LL GET THERE)

ALSO TO THAT OTHER ANON, TEACHING DIA TO DRIVE WOULD BE HILARIOUS

the Three World's Festival card from I think... 2022? The Dia card, it has him picking MC up from the HoL for the festival in a fancy car!! :D I remember getting back into the game full time/seriously during that time and pulling that card from the free pulls promotion

- ✨ anon

LOL! Well, I don't think it's actually called rigged betting, that was just the first thing that came to mind to describe it! I think it's more commonly referred to as match fixing and can apply to any type of sport.

But basically, you got someone who takes bets on sports games/matches (aka a bookie) and then they (or whoever they work for) essentially bribe the athlete involved to throw the match and lose on purpose. It's a real thing that happens! Obviously it's against the rules and it's likely illegal in a lot of places. But uh my knowledge of it is very surface level, so I'm not sure how much of an issue it is?

However, I do think that fixing boxing matches is a thing so it just seemed like something Mammon might be tempted to do if he was the boxer being bribed, you know?

There's just something about boxer!Mammon anyway, but to add that little bit of extra danger... I just think it'd be a compelling situation!! So much potential...

Oh yeah, I know how it is with work taking up all the energy and making it hard to create things. I just manage to get some writing done despite the full time job because I think I'd die if I didn't lol. At the very least, all of my mental problems would become 10x worse.

OH HO so Dia already knows how to drive presumably??? But it would be soooo funny if MC taught him lol!! I think teaching any of the demons how to drive would be funny, but Diavolo is so genuine and earnest, I think he'd be a good student.

[sirensorisons]

ok you know what

ios users: if you're as sick of tumblr's shit as i am, please join me in reporting them through the app store. because they didn't do anything about the literal csam on their website until apple kicked them from the app store, so i figure let's go for round two

on the page for the tumblr app, scroll all the way to the bottom and hit "report a problem", just below "privacy policy"

after that, you'll be prompted to sign in and get directed to a page where you can report. under "what can we help you with?", i selected "report offensive, illegal, or abusive content" and hit next

after that you can describe issues that are important to you. specific issues i brought up:

mature content policies discriminating against trans users

ads not being held to the same mature content rules as users

streams on tumblr live violating tumblr's own rules against mature content

tumblr live privacy concerns

there's a character limit though, so i couldn't include everything i wanted to say. if you need ideas for stuff to highlight that i couldn't:

accessibility issues harming disabled users - inaccessible lightbox (photo/video viewer), flashing ads triggering photosensitive epileptics

deceptive advertising - apparently, paying for ad-free browsing did not exempt ppl from the netflix one piece promotions

hate speech - terfs and nazis

[vintage-vermin]

Did I ever tell you how I got locked out of my old acc like 10 years ago that I only made to talk to a few FF14 peeps and follow random artists? I lost my cool after getting more promoted tweets and ads then actually seeing the people I followed. Because you would also just get phone notifications about random tweet from people you didn't follow. Sure, nowadays when I do scroll through just to see either jokes or art, I have like 57 addons running to delete half the site and make it useful. But man, default Twitter? I have no fucking clue how people stomach that shit. I come from a time where there were no rules regarding internet ads. This mostly manifested into ads that would be made in flash to look cool (and would slow down your machine) and would have auto playing sound to grab your attention (Always 200% volume). Some could also 'trap' your mouse in the little ad if it was made in flash, and have a few properties turned on. If you accidently moused over it would mean you'd be fucked. Any click sends you to the malware invested site that will run the type of script that koeienmoord would have and freeze your machine if you ALT+F4'ed. These later sites became illegal pretty fast and got killed, but they were around for way too long to begin with. As soon as they started to do that, I was done. You fucked up forever to me now. I keep my adblocks up to date, I run tons of scripts to kill ads and other junk, I close sites as soon as I spot ads. I report the ads and block all blazed posts that slip through on my half cracked mobile tumblr app. I run cracked apps for streaming and other video sites for as much as I can. I stopped actively watching TV like 20 years ago. I just can't stomach commercials. I've just been programmed to instantly get a little angry and shut off whatever is showing them. Before I found a better cracked version of the Tumblr app, I would sometimes open it, see 1 ad after 2 posts and I would just close the app. Fuck that noise.

[beardedmrbean]

Democratic Mayor Tiffany Henyard of the small Village of Dolton, Illinois, has made national headlines in recent weeks for being accused of weaponizing police in retaliatory business raids and spending taxpayer money on luxurious trips. Now she is facing investigation by the Dolton Trustees as well as the FBI.

In a special meeting Thursday night, a four-trustee majority "voted unanimously to call for an investigation into Henyard and what they say is the misuse of funds," FOX 32 reported. Dolton Trustees slammed the mayor for having "disgraced this entire village" and being a "stain on our community."

Earlier this week it was reported that the FBI is investigating the mayor, as six individuals have reportedly spoken to the agency about her alleged misconduct, including "business owners, a former village employee and one or more public officials." 

The self-proclaimed "Super Mayor," who insists "God chose me" and met with President Biden in January, has been said to engage in such wild antics it is like a "real life Parks and Rec situation." But her multitudes of alleged misdeeds could finally be catching up to her.

From first-class flights to Las Vegas to beauty vendors, Henyard is frequently called out by her colleagues for questionable spending of taxpayers' money, possibly for her own benefit. She makes $285,000 from her positions both as Dolton mayor and Thornton township supervisor.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Henyard reportedly has a $224,000 a year salary as township supervisor alone, but has put forth an ordinance to cut the salary of any non-incumbent supervisor to $25,000.

Municipal attorney Burt Odelson, said to represent Henyard's political opposition, condemned this as "so illegal in so many ways," telling FOX 32 such conduct "violates so many tenets of the law." 

Aside from her personal income, the way she allegedly uses the town’s money has been a consistent source of controversy. While Henyard has denied using village credit cards, WGN Investigates said it obtained copies of the township’s credit card statements indicating village officials spent more than $24,000 at restaurants during a 12-month span, as well as $3,741 just on Henyard taking a round trip flight to Las Vegas. 

Henyard is also well-known for using a makeup artist, hairdresser and stylist before public appearances and photoshoots. Residents complain she puts up town billboards to promote herself personally, and she has produced music videos that feature city workers, such as police dancing or boosting her image by being in the background as she lip-syncs songs. 

On Tuesday, a Dolton-based U-Haul rental and trucking business owner named Lawrence Gardner told FOX 32 he went to the FBI out of frustration that the Village of Dolton would not renew his business license. He claims he has suffered from harassment, a raid on his business and was shut down by Dolton police. Gardner believes it is retaliation after he refused to donate to a civic event sponsored by Henyard.

FOX 32 reported Wednesday that multiple bars in the town were raided by police the day after the news team visited the businesses amid allegations their licenses were being held up for political reasons. The raids reportedly occurred mere hours after FOX 32’s report about the alleged FBI investigation into Henyard’s conduct was released.  

Employees and owners of the bars reportedly claimed "it's part of an ongoing campaign of harassment by Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard" and that "Their business licenses have been stripped by Dolton, but they've continued to operate with a state license."

Tammie Brown, a Dolton Trustee, was quoted in the same report as saying the raids were a warning to other businesses, "I'm sure that they were asked to donate [to Henyard], make a donation, and most likely they didn't make a donation. So you don't get a chance to stay open if you don't pay the queen's ransom."

The Village of Dolton defended the legitimacy of the raids in a statement to FOX 32, arguing both businesses had their liquor licenses previously revoked, and had "a history of violent incidents."

In addition to the raids and music videos, Henyard's use of the police as her personal security has been a source of controversy as well. 

Henyard spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on security, which effectively takes police officers off the streets who should be protecting the town, Dolton Trustee Brittney Norwood said.

"I think that she spends the money on security because she just loves it. She likes the thought of being surrounded by police officers. I think it makes her feel more important," Norwood said. "The police are simply working under her instructions, but it's also sad. It's sad because we need the police patrolling the streets, and they're with her instead."

Former Dolton Police Chief Robert Collins, who was fired by Henyard, also slammed the mayor for maintaining a security detail of "several officers" whom he argues could be out fighting crime, but are instead "sent out to run errands, do pick-ups, do drop-offs."

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is reportedly cracking down on "The Tiffany Henyard CARES Foundation" which, per the acronym, stands for Cancer And Remission Empowering Survivors.

The Chicago Tribune on Thursday reported that Henyard’s charity "has been told by the Illinois attorney general’s office to stop soliciting or accepting contributions, and that it must register with the state." The same outlet summarized that the mayor was told her charity "is not in good standing and states the attorney general has sent multiple letters advising, among other things, that it is not registered with the state."

The letter reportedly warned that "to avoid further action by this office," the charity must file a registration statement, copies of financial reports and a list of the organization’s officers and/or directors by March 13.

Henyard is also infamous for her fiery rhetoric toward the town's trustees in public meetings.

Fox News Digital reported that Henyard slammed her fellow officials at a meeting in early February about her spending when she declared, "You all forget I’m the leader. They want to hear from the mayor. You all ain’t learned that yet. The mayor, not the trustees that don’t do nothing. They only run their mouth. You all don’t do no work, no work!"

Later during the meeting, Henyard proclaimed, "Y’all got false narratives out there, and y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves. Y’all Black. Y’all are Black! And y’all sitting up here beating and attacking on a Black woman that’s in power. Y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves."

Norwood told Fox News Digital in an interview, "I feel as if I'm in a dictatorship." 

She added, "The way she talks [to the trustees] I sometimes feel as if I'm in a mentally abusive relationship… I've learned to expect her to be disrespectful. She's like a bully." 

Norwood is party to a lawsuit that accused the mayor of actions that amounted to "fraud," according to a complaint reviewed by Fox News Digital. 

Henyard was sued for alleged financial wrongdoing by Dolton Trustees on Dec. 23.

"The Defendant’s actions as alleged constitute a fraud upon the residents and taxpayers of the Village," the lawsuit states. It added, the extent of the financial wrongdoing could be more extensive than is currently alleged as Henyard was allegedly concealing the information from the trustees. 

Henyard, the Village of Dolton, and police department did not respond to requests for comment.