#online roadmap

[horsegamergirl]

NEXT UP IN JORVIK!

PADDOCK PROPS & MORE!

September 4th

"Paddock Props arrive at Paddock Island. Also, the beloved birthday horses from previous years will take up permanent residence in Jorvik! Plus, take a look at our socials for your official SSO 13th birthday sweater."

(The code is 13THBDAY if you haven't seen it yet)

MEDIEVAL!

September 11th

"Hear ye, hear ye! The age of chivalry has dawned upon Jorvik. Pledge your loyalty to one of four noble houses and prove your worth in the Jousting Arena to become a real Jorvegian Knight! You’ll need a mighty steed, so choose from new medieval coat variations fit for a knight."

MORE MEDIEVAL!

September 18th

"The Forgotten Fields provide new opportunities to embrace your medieval fantasies! Choose from three distinct medieval-themed paddock variations. Don the garb of a true knight with new medieval attire, and select from two additional noble coat variations to complete thine ensemble."

DRAGON'S DESCENT + STABLE CUSTOMIZATION

September 25th

"While dragons are known for being mysterious and ancient creatures, the ones arriving in Jorvik are as charming as they are magical. Are you prepared to welcome a mystical new companion? Four dragon eggs have appeared, hidden across the Medieval Area. Faramawr and Alrach return."

(Faramawr and Alrach are the dragon Magic Horses)

HORSES OF JORVIK

October 2nd

"Guess who's back? Guillermo Gadea returns to Jorvik after a long break, ready to host an exciting Western-themed Horses of Jorvik race at Starshine Ranch!"

*Note that updates may be subject to change

Link to the article.

[stevedigitalw0rld]

Learn How To Make Money Online!!

Time flies!! I remember recording this on Christmas Eve this past year...

If you're looking for extra money in 2024 or maybe even looking to replace your job completely, you have to look into adding Digital Marketing to your skill set. Making money is a skill and making money online is becoming more and more necessary every year. Don't sleep on it!!

#christmas #learnnewskills2024 #startabusiness2024 #digitalmarketingforbeginners2024 #learnhowtomakemoneyonline2024

[crtter]

Hi! That’s a pretty good question, actually! I don’t know about other countries, but in Brazil’s case, the fact some people are a bit reluctant to undertake such a trip by car or bus, isn’t exactly due to roads in a bad state (although like. Those exist. Like, they definitely do). It’s more due the fact most of the roads we have are… not optimal for long distance traveling. You mind if I explain it with pictures? Would be easier for me.

OK so. This is a map of the USA’s interstate highways, which you’re probably familiar with. According to Google, interstates can only be considered as such if they have two lanes in each direction. That’s cool!

Now, here’s a roadmap of Brazil:

Not too shabby when it comes to quantity. There is a catch, though! The only roads that would be considered interstates? Four lanes total, two in each direction? Those are only the ones I drew in red. The ones I drew in green only have two lanes, one in each direction.

But wait a minute, you might say. That’s a very small amount, and they’re mostly only by the coast! And why are there fewer roads, period, the further inside the country you go? Well, one reason for it is population density. There are a LOT more people living in coastal areas than in the middle of the country, save for the capital (little square on the middle of the map).

Another aspect of it is historical. You see, it has been less than 40 years since we’ve managed to become a democracy again after two dictatorships almost back to back. You can probably guess how these things kind of put progress at a halt. So. Like. Is São Paulo - Cuiabá a doable trip to make? Well, sure. A lot of people have to do these trips by bus or car in order to see family. Plane tickets are expensive. But is it a straightforward, comfortable trip you don’t have to snake around through a bunch of narrow roads in which you’re bound to run into the eventual traffic jam where they grow scarce, in wildly varying states of maintenance upwards of 19+ hours to make? Not really. Which is why most people prefer to just save the money for a plane ticket.

So! To recapitulate: Population density concentrated mostly along the coast and the coast only plus almost 34 uninterrupted years of being ruled by dictators that didn’t really have the best interests of the population in mind equals not a lot of ways to travel comfortably throughout the country on land. Which equals fewer people up for roadtrips longer than 10+ hours, especially if the destination is so up north that there just aren’t that many roads, period. And that’s why you guys can go see your grandmas all the way on the other side of the country without much issue and we don’t. But that’s OK, though! Multigenerational households are very common here. Most of our grandmas live with us!

”How come you’ve never seen the Amazon rainforest if you’re from Brazil?” big country

[jasminewilson143]

Union Budget 2025 Breakdown: Tax Changes, Policies, and More

Union Budget 2025, Are you prepared for one of the year’s most anticipated events? Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister, is preparing to unveil the Union Budget 2025. Regardless of your interest in policy, business, or just the country’s financial situation, you won’t want to miss this event.The details of how, where, and when to view this historic news will be discussed. What Is the…

[rm-cs]

Update Log 4#

Hello everyone, I'm really hoping that you're doing great and for your weekend to go as planned. I'm happy to inform you that, I'll be getting an upgrade on my computer hardware and from now on RMCS will have a dedicated space to grow as a project and community. I got into some purchases, in order to get myself knowledge on working with tools that will help grow the project, develop a server sandbox in order to experiment on things on a safe level and use the software . Apart from the dedicated space, the next step, would be to create a schematic on how the whole thing will work in an autonomous level. That's right! For the ones who know already, the project was based on Discord and using it's platform to promote the idea and the development of this project within. There will be a community in there but in less than ten words, Discord won' t be the base of operations, anymore. From the 12th of February till the 1st of March I'll be working on making fixes on the brand, developing a database and a entry point for users and artists as well as the first schematic. After that, the creation of a roadmap is nessecary, both for me and the followers of this project. Hopefully, the finishing date of the roadmap and fortunately the RMCS's 1st webspace will be available at the end of August.

In the meantime, other things will be created as well, like polls, interactions, maybe a fundraiser and virtual events on a streaming channel.✨ Thank you very much for your support in general, and in all good intentions, I hope you'll be as happy as I am for coming on this journey with me.

[raulmolinaposts]

Ways to Create Digital Products Fast

Introduction The digital era, often dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has reshaped the trajectory of businesses worldwide. Everyone participates in this digital upheaval, from microscopic startups to colossal conglomerates. At the crux of this transformation lies a lucrative domain—digital products. Their significance in today's marketplace is palpable, bridging gaps and fostering innovations at a pace hitherto unseen.

Understanding the Landscape of Digital Products 

At its essence, a digital product is an intangible asset or piece of media that can be sold and distributed repeatedly online without replenishing inventory. These encompass a vast array, from e-books and online courses to software and mobile applications. The modern consumer's penchant for immediate access, coupled with the pervasive nature of the internet, has catapulted the demand for such products to an all-time high.

The Developmental Process: Ideation to Execution 

Creating a digital product is an intricate ballet, harmonizing creativity with pragmatism.

Conception: It commences with identifying a palpable market need. Perceptive entrepreneurs often discern gaps in the market, which burgeon into ideation sessions.

Design and Prototyping: The prototype phase ensues once the idea is solidified. Here, visions metamorphose into tangible prototypes. Whether it's the draft of an e-book or the beta version of the software, this stage is pivotal in giving shape to the intangible.

Testing: Before the grand unveiling, testing the product rigorously is imperative. This ensures that it is functionally impeccable and resonates with its target audience.

Finalization and Launch: After rigorous iterations and ensuring that the product meets its intended standards, it's time for the grand launch. This phase is about making the product available and strategizing its introduction to garner maximum traction.

Monetization Strategies for Digital Products 

Creating a digital product is just the prologue. The actual narrative is its monetization.

Subscription Models: An increasingly prevalent model, it ensures a consistent revenue stream. Whether software-as-a-service (SaaS) or online periodicals, subscribers receive periodic content in exchange for regular payments.

One-time Purchase vs. Freemium Models: While some products command a one-time fee, others leverage the freemium model. Here, users get basic features for free but must pay for advanced functionalities.

Ancillary Revenue Streams: Beyond the direct methods, creators often employ affiliate marketing, advertisements, or upselling related products to bolster their revenue.

Navigating Potential Pitfalls 

The digital domain, while lucrative, is fraught with potential pitfalls.

Digital Saturation: With innumerable digital products flooding the market, distinguishing oneself is challenging. It demands not just quality but also adept marketing strategies.

Protecting Intellectual Property: Given the intangible nature of these products, they're susceptible to piracy. Safeguarding one's intellectual property through copyrights, trademarks, or patents becomes paramount.

Adapting to the Dynamic Nature: The digital realm is mercurial. What's relevant today may be obsolete tomorrow. Hence, creators must remain agile, updating their products and strategies with market evolutions.

In summation, while the digital product landscape offers many opportunities, it demands meticulous planning, unparalleled creativity, and keen business acumen. As the digital age surges, those poised to make a mark are not just creators but visionaries who can envisage and adapt to the ever-evolving digital tapestry.

Ask any online expert and they will tell you that you need to have your own product to be truly successful online.

Afterall, you can't put all your effort in promoting someone else's business through affiliate marketing, especially if it's something you can't control.

To ensure that you have total flexibility, ownership and control, you need your own product. This is your best bet for ensuring that you’ll have a long-term, sustainable, and scalable business.

But the question still remains… How do you create a product from scratch if you've never done it before? And how to do you do so quickly in the most cost-effective way?

In this special report you'll discover…

The #1 fastest and easiest way to create your own products using other people's content LEGALLY using a 6-step process!… (most newbies will never take advantage of this).

A simple way to get the gurus to create 90% of your product for you… in a way that will make it hard for them to say 'no'.

How to leverage other people's time and talents… and why it's costing you BIG TIME to create your own products from scratch.

1 simple marketing strategy to get your audience to create your product and sales letter for you!

How and WHY you can 'tutorialize' almost any product or software and charge a premium …even if the information is freely available.

How to use blogs and forums to create products within 24 hours. (Most will never take advantage of this strategy. You'll have little or no competition).

Get instant access to this special report from the link below

https://ezshop4u.com/10digitalproducts

[dropoutdeveloper]

Web Development with Dropout Developer's Unique Free Project-Based Learning Approach 2023

Are you looking for a new career in web development, but struggling to find the best way to learn? Are you tired of traditional learning methods that leave you feeling uninspired and unmotivated? Look no further than Dropout Developer, the go-to platform for mastering web development through project-based learning. At Dropout Developer, we believe that project-based learning (PBL) is the key to…

[horsegamergirl]

The roadmap is here!

Next up in Jorvik!

August 7th

MyStable Revamp/Glow Up (Pt. 1)

“With all the time spent running around Jorvik between daily chores, races and chasing danger, it’s essential to have the perfect, personalized space for your horses to rest and wind down after long days. Your home stable is getting a fitting revamp in preparation for more MyStable updates that will allow every equestrian to create a unique home stable experience!”

August 14th

Frizzy Frenzy and Blazing Trails!

“Make for the Friesian! This powerful and versatile horse is a favorite among Jorvegians, medieval warriors, dressage riders and recreational riders alike! The Trailblazer Track is launched, rewarding hard working Star Riders with unique items for both rider and horse. Keep up with daily activities all over Jorvik and earn Trail Points as you go!”

August 21st

The Final Countdown

“So much to learn, but will there ever be enough time? Practise your skills along with the other Soul Riders to prepare for the final confrontation.”

August 28th

More Moorland!

“Ydris caught wind of the ongoing renovations around Moorland, and decided to give his circus tent a little glow up of his own! Penny and Polly are also excited to share their chanes to the Pony Race, so bring out your small, but feisty steeds and check it out!”

Sources: https://www.starstable.com/article/next-up-in-jorvik-august-24

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-U--hpMuVW/?igsh=MTlub3BubzZvc2Qwag==

[stevedigitalw0rld]

Have You Ever Set Up Legal Documents?

We are continuing our Roadmap Journey Series where we cover all that is learned in this course, module by module.

We are now into Part 8 - Setting Up Legal Documents

There is nothing glamorous about legal docs, you are going to learn how to set them up, how they should be worded and how to embed them into your digital products.

#roadmap #legaldocs #onlinebusinesscourse #digitalmarketingcoursesforbeginners #howtosetup

[homoquartz]

i don’t want people to panic. the US been in a fascist state since its formation. what we are watching now is the establishment of a dictatorship.

i want you to notice how mundane it is. it’s happening in stages, boiling the frog. people are noticing it happening.

he has already expressed interest in invading other nations. he is establishing figureheads who will agree with anything he wants in every branch of government. those people have already codified in ink that he will not be held accountable for any actions taken in office. they are ejecting and censuring political representatives who disagree with them.

they are destroying communication channels expressly because they are “anti-american” (tiktok) and it is too easy for us to share ideas. they are spreading targeted, dehumanizing propaganda against brown people, queer people, the disabled, and immigrants. they are stripping away our civil rights to free speech, organized assembly, self-expression, voting, and equal representation. they are stripping more human rights away and actively separating children from families. they have already militarized the police.

it’s here.

i think we’re still a few years out from total shutdown of online communication and arrest for disseminating ideas, a la north korea. we won’t be doing camps the same way as they did in the 40s, either.

we know that if the US decides to begin exterminating certain groups of its citizens, the international community can and will do nothing to stop it. palestine is a case study.

if you can, learn to drive. get a passport. get a physical, paper roadmap of the US. stock up on covid masks. learn basic first aid. learn to cook using bare-bones ingredients. keep an eye on your neighbors - what flags they display, if they seem friendly. and learn some basic conflict deescalation skills. having these things will help more than anything else.

again, i don’t want people to panic. i think there’s still a good chance we can right this ship, and if not, there is time. for the vast majority of people, business is going to continue as normal no matter what. it will all be orderly.

[highblkfemsociety]

Finishing Strong: A Guide to Ending the Year with Intention

Hello Beautiful,

As we enter the final quarter of the year, it’s time to reassess, realign, and step into our power. For the high-achieving woman, Q4 is the perfect opportunity to manifest abundance, success, and peace. The last stretch of the year can be incredibly transformative if you take the time to focus on intentional growth and clarity. This guide will help you make the most of it.

Vision Boarding: Your Visual Blueprint for Success

A vision board is more than just a collection of inspiring images— it’s a visual roadmap to your goals. As the year draws to a close, this tool can help you stay aligned with your deepest desires and prevent distractions from trends that may not serve your higher purpose.

Why Vision Boarding Works:

Clarifies intentions: Visualizing your goals helps solidify them in your mind.

Amplifies focus: It’s easier to stay on track when you can see success every day.

Boosts motivation: A visual reminder reignites passion when the journey gets tough.

Tracks progress: As you achieve goals, you can reflect on how far you’ve come.

Encourages self-reflection: It’s a tool for assessing what truly matters to you, even as life shifts.

How to Create an Inspiring Vision Board:

Set your intentions: Before you begin, ask yourself what you truly want to manifest in the final months of the year. Be specific. Is it financial abundance? Career growth? Deeper self-love?

Gather visuals: Find images, quotes, and affirmations that align with your intentions. These can come from magazines, online, or even personal photographs that symbolize your goals.

Display with purpose: Place your vision board somewhere you’ll see it daily. It could be your workspace, bedroom, or even your phone wallpaper—wherever it can regularly inspire you.

Review regularly: As the quarter progresses, check in with your board. Adjust it as needed, whether adding new goals or removing old ones.

Vision boarding is not just about aesthetics; it’s a way to stay grounded in your purpose and connected to your inner desires. This practice empowers you to remain authentic and committed to meaningful objectives, ensuring you don’t stray from your path as the year winds down.

Journaling for Clarity: Unlocking Your True Potential

Along with vision boarding, journaling is an essential practice for self-discovery and personal growth. It allows you to access your innermost thoughts, uncover desires, and identify areas where you need to pivot or push harder.

The Benefits of Journaling for Clarity:

Fosters self-awareness: Writing helps you process emotions and ideas, leading to deeper understanding.

Refines your objectives: Journaling can reveal what’s most important to you, helping to prioritize goals.

Uncovers hidden strengths: Often, we don’t recognize our capabilities until we reflect on them through writing.

Helps you strategize: By identifying potential obstacles, you can develop plans to overcome them.

Enhances focus and motivation: Regular journaling keeps your objectives clear, making it easier to stay disciplined.

Journaling Prompts for a Powerful Q4:

What do I want to achieve by the end of this year?

What obstacles have held me back in the past, and how can I overcome them?

What are my strengths, and how can I leverage them to reach my goals?

How do I want to feel when I look back on this year in December?

What am I grateful for right now, and how can I use that energy to propel me forward?

When you make journaling a part of your daily routine, you create space for clarity and creativity. This practice is especially powerful for manifesting success and growth because it fosters a mindset of continuous self-improvement and reflection.

Mindset Shifts: The Power of Affirmations and Mental Resets

The final quarter is not just about working toward your goals but also about transforming your mindset to support your journey. Affirmations and mental resets are two key strategies for doing this.

Why Mindset Matters:

Success isn’t just about hard work; it’s about believing you are worthy of the results. Affirmations are a daily tool to remind yourself of your power and potential. Whether you say them in front of a mirror or write them in your journal, affirmations help shift limiting beliefs into empowering ones.

Examples of Affirmations for a Powerful Q4:

I am deserving of all the abundance that is coming my way.

I am capable of achieving everything I set my mind to.

I am worthy of success, love, and happiness.

I trust the process and know that everything is unfolding for my highest good.

I release any doubts and embrace my power fully.

Daily mental resets can also help you stay grounded when challenges arise. These can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths, practicing meditation, or taking a short walk to clear your mind. By intentionally resetting, you can approach tasks with renewed energy and focus.

As the year draws to a close, the fourth quarter provides an opportunity for reflection, growth, and manifestation. Whether through vision boarding, journaling, or affirmations, reclaim your power and finish the year with intention.

How are you planning to end the year with intention? Share your goals and insights below!

Check out our Instagram & Facebook for more!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tech monopolists use their market power to invade your privacy

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

It's easy to greet the FTC's new report on social media privacy, which concludes that tech giants have terrible privacy practices with a resounding "duh," but that would be a grave mistake.

Much to the disappointment of autocrats and would-be autocrats, administrative agencies like the FTC can't just make rules up. In order to enact policies, regulators have to do their homework: for example, they can do "market studies," which go beyond anything you'd get out of an MBA or Master of Public Policy program, thanks to the agency's legal authority to force companies to reveal their confidential business information.

Market studies are fabulous in their own right. The UK Competition and Markets Authority has a fantastic research group called the Digital Markets Unit that has published some of the most fascinating deep dives into how parts of the tech industry actually function, 400+ page bangers that pierce the Shield of Boringness that tech firms use to hide their operations. I recommend their ad-tech study:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study

In and of themselves, good market studies are powerful things. They expose workings. They inform debate. When they're undertaken by wealthy, powerful countries, they provide enforcement roadmaps for smaller, poorer nations who are being tormented in the same way, by the same companies, that the regulator studied.

But market studies are really just curtain-raisers. After a regulator establishes the facts about a market, they can intervene. They can propose new regulations, and they can impose "conduct remedies" (punishments that restrict corporate behavior) on companies that are cheating.

Now, the stolen, corrupt, illegitimate, extremist, bullshit Supreme Court just made regulation a lot harder. In a case called Loper Bright, SCOTUS killed the longstanding principle of "Chevron deference," which basically meant that when an agency said it had built a factual case to support a regulation, courts should assume they're not lying:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/scotus-decisions-chevron-immunity-loper

The death of Chevron Deference means that many important regulations – past, present and future – are going to get dragged in front of a judge, most likely one of those Texas MAGA mouth-breathers in the Fifth Circuit, to be neutered or killed. But even so, regulators still have options – they can still impose conduct remedies, which are unaffected by the sabotage of Chevron Deference.

Pre-Loper, post-Loper, and today, the careful, thorough investigation of the facts of how markets operate is the prelude to doing things about how those markets operate. Facts matter. They matter even if there's a change in government, because once the facts are in the public domain, other governments can use them as the basis for action.

Which is why, when the FTC uses its powers to compel disclosures from the largest tech companies in the world, and then assesses those disclosures and concludes that these companies engage in "vast surveillance," in ways that the users don't realize and that these companies "fail to adequately protect users, that matters.

What's more, the Commission concludes that "data abuses can fuel market dominance, and market dominance can, in turn, further enable data abuses and practices that harm consumers." In other words: tech monopolists spy on us in order to achieve and maintain their monopolies, and then they spy on us some more, and that hurts us.

So if you're wondering what kind of action this report is teeing up, I think we can safely say that the FTC believes that there's evidence that the unregulated, rampant practices of the commercial surveillance industry are illegal. First, because commercial surveillance harms us as "consumers." "Consumer welfare" is the one rubric for enforcement that the right-wing economists who hijacked antitrust law in the Reagan era left intact, and here we have the Commission giving us evidence that surveillance hurts us, and that it comes about as a result of monopoly, and that the more companies spy, the stronger their monopolies become.

But the Commission also tees up another kind of enforcement: Section 5, the long (long!) neglected power of the agency to punish companies for "unfair and deceptive methods of competition," a very broad power indeed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

In the study, the Commission shows – pretty convincingly! – that the commercial surveillance sector routinely tricks people who have no idea how their data is being used. Most people don't understand, for example, that the platforms use all kinds of inducements to get web publishers to embed tracking pixels, fonts, analytics beacons, etc that send user-data back to the Big Tech databases, where it's merged with data from your direct interactions with the company. Likewise, most people don't understand the shadowy data-broker industry, which sells Big Tech gigantic amounts of data harvested by your credit card company, by Bluetooth and wifi monitoring devices on streets and in stores, and by your car. Data-brokers buy this data from anyone who claims to have it, including people who are probably lying, like Nissan, who claims that it has records of the smells inside drivers' cars, as well as those drivers' sex-lives:

https://nypost.com/2023/09/06/nissan-kia-collect-data-about-drivers-sexual-activity/

Or Cox Communications, which claims that it is secretly recording and transcribing the conversations we have in range of the mics on our speakers, phones, and other IoT devices:

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

(If there's a kernel of truth to Cox's bullshit, my guess it's that they've convinced some of the sleazier "smart TV" companies to secretly turn on their mics, then inflated this into a marketdroid's wet-dream of "we have logged every word uttered by Americans and can use it to target ads.)

Notwithstanding the rampant fraud inside the data brokerage industry, there's no question that some of the data they offer for sale is real, that it's intimate and sensitive, and that the people it's harvested from never consented to its collection. How do you opt out of public facial recognition cameras? "Just don't have a face" isn't a realistic opt-out policy.

And if the public is being deceived about the collection of this data, they're even more in the dark about the way it's used – merged with on-platform usage data and data from apps and the web, then analyzed for the purposes of drawing "inferences" about you and your traits.

What's more, the companies have chaotic, bullshit internal processes for handling your data, which also rise to the level of "deceptive and unfair" conduct. For example, if you send these companies a deletion request for your data, they'll tell you they deleted the data, but actually, they keep it, after "de-identifying" it.

De-identification is a highly theoretical way of sanitizing data by removing the "personally identifiers" from it. In practice, most de-identified data can be quickly re-identified, and nearly all de-identified data can eventually be re-identified:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Breaches, re-identification, and weaponization are extraordinarily hard to prevent. In general, we should operate on the assumption that any data that's collected will probably leak, and any data that's retained will almost certainly leak someday. To have even a hope of preventing this, companies have to treat data with enormous care, maintaining detailed logs and conducting regular audits. But the Commission found that the biggest tech companies are extraordinarily sloppy, to the point where "they often could not even identify all the data points they collected or all of the third parties they shared that data with."

This has serious implications for consumer privacy, obviously, but there's also a big national security dimension. Given the recent panic at the prospect that the Chinese government is using Tiktok to spy on Americans, it's pretty amazing that American commercial surveillance has escaped serious Congressional scrutiny.

After all, it would be a simple matter to use the tech platforms targeting systems to identify and push ads (including ads linking to malicious sites) to Congressional staffers ("under-40s with Political Science college degrees within one mile of Congress") or, say, NORAD personnel ("Air Force enlistees within one mile of Cheyenne Mountain").

Those targeting parameters should be enough to worry Congress, but there's a whole universe of potential characteristics that can be selected, hence the Commission's conclusion that "profound threats to users can occur when targeting occurs based on sensitive categories."

The FTC's findings about the dangers of all this data are timely, given the current wrangle over another antitrust case. In August, a federal court found that Google is a monopolist in search, and that the company used its data lakes to secure and maintain its monopoly.

This kicked off widespread demands for the court to order Google to share its data with competitors in order to erase that competitive advantage. Holy moly is this a bad idea – as the FTC study shows, the data that Google stole from us all is incredibly toxic. Arguing that we can fix the Google problem by sharing that data far and wide is like proposing that we can "solve" the fact that only some countries have nuclear warheads by "democratizing" access to planet-busting bombs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

To address the competitive advantage Google achieved by engaging in the reckless, harmful conduct detailed in this FTC report, we should delete all that data. Sure, that may seem inconceivable, but come on, surely the right amount of toxic, nonconsensually harvested data on the public that should be retained by corporations is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction

Some people argue that we don't need to share out the data that Google never should have been allowed to collect – it's enough to share out the "inferences" that Google drew from that data, and from other data its other tentacles (Youtube, Android, etc) shoved into its gaping maw, as well as the oceans of data-broker slurry it stirred into the mix.

But as the report finds, the most unethical, least consensual data was "personal information that these systems infer, that was purchased from third parties, or that was derived from users’ and non-users’ activities off of the platform." We gotta delete that, too. Especially that.

A major focus of the report is the way that the platforms handled children's data. Platforms have special obligations when it comes to kids' data, because while Congress has failed to act on consumer privacy, they did bestir themselves to enact a children's privacy law. In 2000, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which puts strict limits on the collection, retention and processing of data on kids under 13.

Now, there are two ways to think about COPPA. One view is, "if you're not certain that everyone in your data-set is over 13, you shouldn't be collecting or processing their data at all." Another is, "In order to ensure that everyone whose data you're collecting and processing is over 13, you should collect a gigantic amount of data on all of them, including the under-13s, in order to be sure that not collecting under-13s' data." That second approach would be ironically self-defeating, obviously, though it's one that's gaining traction around the world and in state legislatures, as "age verification" laws find legislative support.

The platforms, meanwhile, found a third, even stupider approach: rather than collecting nothing because they can't verify ages, or collecting everything to verify ages, they collect everything, but make you click a box that says, "I'm over 13":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/09/how-to-make-a-child-safe-tiktok/

It will not surprise you to learn that many children under 13 have figured out that they can click the "I'm over 13" box and go on their merry way. It won't surprise you, but apparently, it will surprise the hell out of the platforms, who claimed that they had zero underage users on the basis that everyone has to click the "I'm over 13" box to get an account on the service.

By failing to pass comprehensive privacy legislation for 36 years (and counting), Congress delegated privacy protection to self-regulation by the companies themselves. They've been marking their own homework, and now, thanks to the FTC's power to compel disclosures, we can say for certain that the platforms cheat.

No surprise that the FTC's top recommendation is for Congress to pass a new privacy law. But they've got other, eminently sensible recommendations, like requiring the companies to do a better job of protecting their users' data: collect less, store less, delete it after use, stop combining data from their various lines of business, and stop sharing data with third parties.

Remember, the FTC has broad powers to order "conduct remedies" like this, and these are largely unaffected by the Supreme Court's "Chevron deference" decision in Loper-Bright.

The FTC says that privacy policies should be "clear, simple, and easily understood," and says that ad-targeting should be severely restricted. They want clearer consent for data inferences (including AI), and that companies should monitor their own processes with regular, stringent audits.

They also have recommendations for competition regulators – remember, the Biden administration has a "whole of government" antitrust approach that asks every agency to use its power to break up corporate concentration:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

They say that competition enforcers factor in the privacy implications of proposed mergers, and think about how promoting privacy could also promote competition (in other words, if Google's stolen data helped it secure a monopoly, then making them delete that data will weaken their market power).

I understand the reflex to greet a report like this with cheap cynicism, but that's a mistake. There's a difference between "everybody knows" that tech is screwing us on privacy, and "a federal agency has concluded" that this is true. These market studies make a difference – if you doubt it, consider for a moment that Cigna is suing the FTC for releasing a landmark market study showing how its Express Scripts division has used its monopoly power to jack up the price of prescription drugs:

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/express-scripts-files-suit-against-ftc-demands-retraction-report-pbm-industry

Big business is shit-scared of this kind of research by federal agencies – if they think this threatens their power, why shouldn't we take them at their word?

This report is a milestone, and – as with the UK Competition and Markets Authority reports – it's a banger. Even after Loper-Bright, this report can form the factual foundation for muscular conduct remedies that will limit what the largest tech companies can do.

But without privacy law, the data brokerages that feed the tech giants will be largely unaffected. True, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is doing some good work at the margins here:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But we need to do more than curb the worst excesses of the largest data-brokers. We need to kill this sector, and to do that, Congress has to act:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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/2024/09/20/water-also-wet/#marking-their-own-homework

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[mariacallous]

Just before the presidential election last November, Carolyn Fisher was in her living room in Birmingham, Alabama, when her nonbinary child walked in and said that he, along with four other transgender kids, were planning on dying by suicide if Donald Trump won the upcoming election.

Fisher and her husband were both lifelong Republicans and supporters of Trump. Holding a spiral notebook, Carolyn’s 16-year-old, who uses the pronouns he and they, made a case against voting for Trump.

“He laid out why a vote for Donald Trump was voting against him as our child and why Donald Trump should never be president. He had literally been keeping notes of everything Trump and other Republicans had been saying about trans and nonbinary people, how they were mentally delusional and mentally ill. When he laid all of that out, my husband and I, we both just looked at each other and started crying.”

Fisher, together with members of the Rainbow Youth Project, contacted the parents of the other children who were part of the pact.

The Fishers later voted for then-vice president Kamala Harris, even going so far as taking a picture of their ballot to show their child.

But Trump still won, and during the president’s inauguration speech on January 20, the Fishers heard him say that their child effectively doesn’t exist when he signed a sweeping executive order that, among other things, calls for the ending of trans care, requires housing trans women in male prisons, and allows only male or female markers on official documents like passports and not the “X” that was introduced in 2021 for people who identify as nonbinary, intersex, or gender nonconforming.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said.

When a bishop at the National Cathedral service for the inauguration this week asked Trump to protect “gay, lesbian, and transgender children” the president dismissed her pleas in a Truth Social post and called her “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”

The executive order contains provisions that require further federal action to become law, and this document should be viewed as a roadmap the Trump administration has drafted to signal what new rules they are planning on implementing. But experts say the order published this week, in conjunction with Trump’s very public comments, are designed to strike fear into the trans community.

“I think there's a huge amount of it that is just about fear, and a part of it is trying to scare people into compliance” Allison Chapman, a trans rights activist, tells WIRED. “Enforcement takes a lot of time, energy, and resources, so what we really need people to do is to not voluntarily comply in advance. There needs to be an active resistance to these things.”

The Rainbow Youth Project, an organization focused on helping young LGBTQ+ people, received over 6,000 calls in just the first couple of days after Trump’s November election win. That’s up from the usual 3,600 calls a month. It didn’t stop: The hotline received over 8,000 calls in December.

Now, after Trump’s comment and actions on the first day of his presidency, the group’s crisis helpline is once again receiving a torrent of calls. Sixty-two percent of incoming calls this week, the group tells WIRED, are from trans and gender-nonconforming adolescents age 14 to 17.

The callers are expressing varying degrees of emotional and mental distress, often expressing feelings of hopelessness and fear. One of the most common sentiments shared is “my country does not want me to exist.”

While the Trump administration’s actions are causing huge distress for the trans community and their families, a stark increase in the attacks, both online and offline, are already coming from Trump supporters who feel emboldened.

“We have already seen an uptick in the hate against us,” Fisher says. “We had someone who came to our home just last Tuesday and put a note in our mailbox that said: ‘He's your daddy now, he's your president. You people won't exist anymore.’ So yes, they're definitely emboldened.”

A trans pride flag they had hanging on their porch has been stolen twice in the space of a week. At her local Piggly Wiggly, a supermarket, she overheard people at an adjacent table talking about how glad they were that Trump had “gotten rid of” trans people.

“He didn’t get rid of them, they’re always going to exist—but he damn so put a target on them, especially my teenage son,” Fisher said.

And the attacks are also targeting the groups who are trying to help the LGBTQ+ community.

“We have seen a lot more hate,” Lance Preston, executive director of the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “We've been receiving a lot of messages, crazy shit, like ‘Trump is your president, now all of you are gonna have to go away. We don't want you here.’ We get those in contact submission forms every day, and since the election it has just grown exponentially. It's really sad.”

Some activists are also concerned that those who have always stood with the LGBTQ+ community could be too scared to speak up under Trump’s new administration.

“Every time something like this happens we notice supporters backing down and just getting quiet,” Chris Sederburg, who helps trans and gender nonconforming people through the Rainbow Youth Project, tells WIRED. “Not all of them, but a lot of them do because they're scared of what's happening. They're scared of what might happen to them or they might catch hate for it.”

Sederburg, a trans man who works as a trucker, communicates with young trans people on social media and says that the response this week from the community has been one of “intense, immediate fear.”

For Jamie Anderson, a 40-year-old teacher living in Texas, her biggest fear is that Trump’s administration forces her 15-year-old daughter Dawn, who came out as trans last year, to make a traumatic decision.

“My biggest worry is that she's going to have to go back to living a lie, like not being who she is meant to be,” says Anderson. “She's happy now, she's a lot happier than she was right before she came out. She was super depressed. We had no idea what was going on. And finally she comes out, and she's this whole brand-new, amazing, loving child.”

But that’s not Dawn’s biggest fear. When WIRED asked what that would be, Dawn remained silent. Moments after the interview, Dawn sent a message: “I am afraid the government will take me away and end up killing me because I am transgender,” adding that she was now willing to share this in case “it might help others understand what I’m going through.”

(Jamie and Dawn are not the women’s real names. WIRED is using pseudonyms to protect their identities.)

The Fishers, meanwhile, are considering moving to a different state, possibly to California, where they feel their child would be more protected. But Carolyn Fisher worries about other families and trans and nonbinary children who may not have that option.

“I just want these kids to know that there are people out there, even Republicans, even conservative Christians, who love them and accept them for the way they are, and we want them to stay here with us,” Fisher says.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for free, 24-hour support from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line. Outside the US, visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for crisis centers around the world. If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community in need of help, you can contact the Rainbow Youth Project here or by calling ((317) 643-4888.