certified delinquent

murderbot says trans rights

Oh

OH!!!

OhOhOHHhhhhhh!!!!!!!11!!eleven11!!!!!

The ✨

Fucking 😻

European Union's 🌈

Digital Service Act 🥲

Forces large social platforms 🥳

To always offer ♥️

a non-algorithmic option 🌟

To EU users 🤟

[source]

I see US tech jounalists on Mastodon, once again, charging against the EU for "damaging european users" by forcing companies to deliver "a subpar experience". So let me paste something I wrote over there a few weeks ago:

------

I keep seeing very important US tech journalist here talking about how Threads not launching in the EU is: - somehow shameful and a sign of how "you can't innovate in the EU" - a problem for the EU, which will led us to creative interpretations of the GDPR to finally allow Meta to launch here.

And I think folks from the US tech scene really, really don't understand several things:

1) how incredibly hostile the EU (and a good chunk of the European political parties) are to "big tech". 2) how surprisingly immune to lobbying the EU Parliament appears to be. 3) how actually popular it's that the politicians take a hard stance against macrocorps. Every time the European Commission has gone against big tech most the press and the people have cheered them as our champions against evil.

And I can't even start describing how IMPORTANT for the future could be that people started being able to turn off YouTube algorithmic recommendations. I think YouTube shares with meta, pretty much 50/50, the responsibility for the global resurgence of fascism we have seen in the last decade.

Small correction, the wording in the Verge article states that the tiktok algorithm will not rely on data gathered about the users' browser history. (A very good and important change.) Not that there will be no algorithm at all.

People tend to use "Algorithm" to signify only "harmful or invasive content recommendation systems" but we really need a better word for that. A pedant could argue that sorting posts by date of creation makes use of a algorithm, and they'd be right.

Sorting? Not only that, everything that gets you your feed is algorithmic.

If we get down this pedantic lane, there is no website, nor computer, nor any electronics, that doesn't use algorithms.

If we get even more pedantic, if you every time you cooked using a recipe, or followed some written instructions, you have been using algorithms.

What you are saying is the same than saying we need a new word for Electric Cars because all cars are electric. Well, yes. Yes they do. But the general usage of the term, both in "algorithmic content" and "electric vehicles" is clear enough for everyone at this point.

Pardon my arguing in reblogs but this post does provide an example of how the word's common usage muddies the water. Tiktok will expressly not provide a sort-by-date option, they will simply default to a less invasive recommender system. It is not helpful to call that non-algorithmic.

There are still algorithms at play here, and it is more useful to talk about stuff like

I work with computers and - perhaps for that reason - I had to hear the "no algorithms" argument a couple of times before I even understood that a serious point was being made.

From my perspective, the electric car analogy would rather be if people did not make any difference between cars and busses, so that any criticism of cars would also target the actual alternatives.

Oh

OH!!!

OhOhOHHhhhhhh!!!!!!!11!!eleven11!!!!!

The ✨

Fucking 😻

European Union's 🌈

Digital Service Act 🥲

Forces large social platforms 🥳

To always offer ♥️

a non-algorithmic option 🌟

To EU users 🤟

[source]

I see US tech jounalists on Mastodon, once again, charging against the EU for "damaging european users" by forcing companies to deliver "a subpar experience". So let me paste something I wrote over there a few weeks ago:

------

I keep seeing very important US tech journalist here talking about how Threads not launching in the EU is: - somehow shameful and a sign of how "you can't innovate in the EU" - a problem for the EU, which will led us to creative interpretations of the GDPR to finally allow Meta to launch here.

And I think folks from the US tech scene really, really don't understand several things:

1) how incredibly hostile the EU (and a good chunk of the European political parties) are to "big tech". 2) how surprisingly immune to lobbying the EU Parliament appears to be. 3) how actually popular it's that the politicians take a hard stance against macrocorps. Every time the European Commission has gone against big tech most the press and the people have cheered them as our champions against evil.

And I can't even start describing how IMPORTANT for the future could be that people started being able to turn off YouTube algorithmic recommendations. I think YouTube shares with meta, pretty much 50/50, the responsibility for the global resurgence of fascism we have seen in the last decade.

Small correction, the wording in the Verge article states that the tiktok algorithm will not rely on data gathered about the users' browser history. (A very good and important change.) Not that there will be no algorithm at all.

People tend to use "Algorithm" to signify only "harmful or invasive content recommendation systems" but we really need a better word for that. A pedant could argue that sorting posts by date of creation makes use of a algorithm, and they'd be right.

No, but this is actually crazy in the most dystopian sense.

babe please open the door. I'm so sorry. I promise I'll never call your boycunt a malebox ever again

this deserved better it was a banger

me: if I become the evil overlord I will never harm my minions

[5 years later]

highly throwable imp: hoohoohee

me: hmm

Happy gays expected throughout city day

MOOMINS AS STOCK IMAGES!!!

I did these out of boredom, maybe I'll do more some other time, who knows?

stab!

i constantly forget that stimming will help me. like sometimes i feel so overwhelmed and start catastrophizing about my job or a partner or my family or friends. BUT THEN I STIM. and life's okay

spam emails are horrifying on an entirely different level once you actually begin to grapple with the material reality of ‘cyberspace’. how many servers were involved in dumping this message into my trash folder, where are they located, how much water goes into cooling them every day? where did the metals come from to build these facilities, who maintains them, how much labour and suffering and exploitation is required to bombard me with 50 messages a day i don’t even look at for products i will never buy? not just useless or a nuisance, but actively harming the earth & its people, and for what. zero social value, zero human communication, just capital trying to metastasise

I once read the factoid that the crime of spamming has a lower ratio cost-to-enrichment ratio than stealing a car. That is, if you steal a car and flip it on the black market for $10k, the cost you inflict on honest society is less than if you made those $10k doing spam advertising.