The Antisocial Network

[Thad]

Yeah, that's why I said "Hard to say what long-term impact it'll have." Zuckerberg is pulling his "I'm sorry, we'll do better" act as per usual; FB making a few token gestures and the big advertisers quietly coming back is definitely one possible outcome and I wouldn't bet against it.

Part of this, and part of why some of the companies have set long timelines like "for the rest of the year", is they want enough time to see how this plays out, how much of a hit they take, and whether it's worth it.

[Mongrel]

It's always fun to watch Facebook get smacked around, but the list of players here gives me pause. Verizon? Coca-Cola? These aren't stalwarts of internet fair play and sensible advertising limits; what the fuck are they actually on about?

Big plodding corporate behemoths aren't particularly fond of end-of-days levels of chaos even when it's not hitting their share prices.

[Brantly B.]

That wasn't true for a time but actually looking into it both of those companies seems to have purged the death cultists from their stack, so who knows, maybe this really is a tidal shift. I can't even imagine it any more.

[Mongrel]

That wasn't true for a time but actually looking into it both of those companies seems to have purged the death cultists from their stack, so who knows, maybe this really is a tidal shift. I can't even imagine it any more.

Oh greed makes them happy to dabble, and they get away with it for little things or for short whiles, but when shit gets this big as 2020 has been, that gets uncomfortably existential.

I suspect all the crazy mask shit literally killing thousands of people paying customers in particular may be pushing a fair few rich conservative assholes to the point where they think this is all a bit much.

[Thad]

Related: Reddit finally bans /r/The_Donald.

They don't deserve any praise for doing the right thing so long after it became clear it was the right thing, but it's an interesting sign of which way the wind is blowing that they finally felt like they had to do it.

[Mongrel]

Also most of the posters there had already moved offsite.

[Mongrel]

Oh hey, they banned the TERF subreddit too! (r/gendercritical).

[Büge]

[Yoji]

Yeesh, the comments are full of variations of BUH WHO CARES I HAVE NOTHIN TO HIDE

Do they really not understand the potential for abuse and manipulation here? Shrug all you want, but don't act surprised when you look up at an LED signboard one day and see your face and social credit score. Dumb shits can't see cyberpunk dystopia when it's an inch from their faces.

[Mongrel]

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

(not surprised)

[Mongrel]

Almost as good as the time he pretended to be a woman for sock puppet praise of his review of Frozen(!). Only he forgot to actually switch to a different account to make the comment.

[Joxam]

I mean I would never agree with that asshole but there are absolutely genetic markers that make getting transplants for some people next to impossible, the problem is that its the exact opposite than what he's describing.

Turns out most white people are perfectly fine with taking organs from the most people possible, but like, my mom had to wait a decade for a kidney transplant and both my uncles who had kidney failure died without one because of how rare it is that a native person is compatible with organs that come from none native donors.

[Mongrel]

I mean I would never agree with that asshole but there are absolutely genetic markers that make getting transplants for some people next to impossible, the problem is that its the exact opposite than what he's describing.

Turns out most white people are perfectly fine with taking organs from the most people possible, but like, my mom had to wait a decade for a kidney transplant and both my uncles who had kidney failure died without one because of how rare it is that a native person is compatible with organs that come from none native donors.

Yep, I think most of us understand and know there all sorts of barriers to transplants. It's absolutely fair to point out the scientific reality that smaller minority groups are going to sometimes have a tougher time with medical issues like this, both genetically, and socially in terms of having less representation or access to medical care which might help identify them as a donor.

Race can sometimes impact this, albeit indirectly and Indigenous populations in particular have all kinds of unique stuff going on (fun fact: Starr explained to me that what we layfolks normally talk about as "family" factors for transplant matches are referred to as HLA, or Human Leukocyte Antigens. Though of all people on the board, you might already know that one!). But, yeah, that's not what Stevie was foot-in-mouthing about. And all of these differences are effectively negligible when it comes to justifying how we treat one another as people.

I've actually been amazed at the barriers that turn out NOT to be. Like yesterday I learned there's a lot of organs you can transplant between genders as long as everything else is a match, including hearts! I would have thought there'd be a lot more complications, but nope!

[Brantly B.]

Basically the dude knew you needed a certain amount of genetic compatibility and assumed people of other races are too "different" to ever be compatible.

The fact that this turns out to be untrue not only blows his argument apart but also takes the entire concept of differentness out back and has it put to rest.

Stefan Molyneux is a progressive superstar.

[Mongrel]

Well! People are gonna be talking about this one for a while!

Twitter accounts of prominent figures, including Biden, Musk and Obama, compromised in major hack. Accounts of Uber and Apple also appear to have been compromised as part of scam instructing followers to transfer cryptocurrency (via The Guardian)

The best part was that this was that the scam:


Straight up "Send me bitcoin and I'll double it".


EDIT: Twitter has just suspended ALL verified accounts ahahaha. holy shit.

incredible reversal of fortunes- proles running wild

[Niku]

hahaha it sure is good this was used for a bitcoin scam and not to cause nuclear war hahaha

[Grath]

If the responsible party had any morals, they would've tweeted out "The pee tape is real" as Trump, with a gif of Toad giving a thumbs up.

[Mongrel]

If the responsible party had any morals, they would've tweeted out "The pee tape is real" as Trump, with a gif of Toad giving a thumbs up.

I did notice they only hacked major left-wing or corporate accounts (Obama and Biden get hit, but not Trump or any of the remaining Twitter Nazis? Hmmmm), but I don't know if that's a reflection of the scammers political mores or just an attempt to make it seem politically motivated.

On top of that, it's always possible it's Russian-based; they're cheeky like that. Don't know if it's a point for or against that theory that Cozy Bear (the Russian military hacking unit) were also just busted this morning for trying to break into corporate Coronavirus vaccine trial data, in the US, UK, and Canada.

It's not impossible the Twitter explosion was cover for this, though that could have been the case even with two totally separate entities working alone and Russian agents just taking advantage of the chaos to go for medical data. Speculation, speculation...

[mharr]

I had a weird thought about the people drowning in online conspiracy quicksand recently - the ones I know that seem most vulnerable are no-nonsense work hard, play hard sorts that (afaict) were never into anything before this. No memorised fantasy world lore, no obsessing over decade long TV series', no fantasy football, no multiple bookcase Discworld or Marvel collection.

Is filling your head with nerd nonsense a useful innoculation against someone else filling it with their alternative reality?

[Thad]

The other, of course, involves Orcs.