#“no legitimate interest in or public need for this information

[friezaglasiencold]

Hi there, Frieza!!

I'm a researcher writing a book about the ins and outs of Icejin Culture. Seeing as you're one of the few left, I need your assistance.

What are some rarely known facts about your species? Customs? Taboos? Preferences?

Give as much information as you're comfortable with.

Thank you,

RR Interstellar Research Facilities

$73 Cicada Drive

XX217

Nosy, nosy. Hoho...

Fine, I'll bite. Do keep in mind that some of this was learned secondhand-- despite holding the throne I prefer to focus on the business side of things and don't spend much time on my planet of origin. Further still, I prefer not to associate myself with the species at large, bearing my mutations and abject superiority in mind. As the prince of that sad lot, though, I'm obviously the most relevant person to ask. Forgive me if I ramble; I'll put it under a cut in post.

Now, let's see. 'Customs' could range anywhere from religion to breakfast preferences. I'll cover some of the ground in between, but I'm not going to type an essay for you. If you want more than what I give, send another message, and be more specific.

To begin with, the species has many names, as I've mentioned before. Here are some of the ones I've encountered in my travels:

Icejin (Most common.)

Arcosian (Scientifically accurate.)

Frost Demon (Fond of this one.)

Glaesar (Less common. Very formal usage.)

Polarite (Rarely used. Probably archaic.)

Suliform (I believe this is derived from 'Arcosulite', the unique mineral found in biogem shells.)

Changeling (Obvious origin.)

Culturally, the most prominent keystones are these--eloquence, formality, education, competition, and achievement. It's considered very rude to speak casually to someone with whom you are not close; you may think an individual is gibbering mad when he addresses you in riddles and tongues, but that's only because the general population is staggeringly naive. You must learn to read a room, and to never trust someone at first glance.

Or at first reading. Heh. I hope you've not been taking everything I say here at face value.

Children learn early on the importance of social hierarchy. Climbing it came naturally to me, but I've seen how the proletariat scrabble over each other with such thinly-veiled desperation. Resources are scarce on the home planet, after all; that is, I believe, why we became such competent spacefarers in the first place. Arcos is an inhospitable world. The few times I've visited it's been out of obligation to appeal to those remaining (mostly the elderly, infirm, or very young; nobody stays there long). I can't have them forgetting about their Prince, after all.

Ah, here's a fun fact--the point on Kuriza's head is a vestigial egg tooth. I only learned this after he was born; I'd no idea what the thing was for until I asked around. It's cute, isn't it? Evidently ovoviviparity only became the norm a couple of generations prior, and before that the egg would remain intact until a few hours afterward...

Hm. Let me think of more. I'll only bother with the interesting ones.

-Makeup denotes status. A nobleperson appearing without a full face of makeup in public is grounds for a legitimate scandal.

-It's possible to approximate a person's power level by their biogem color. The closer to violet, the stronger they are. Something, something, life energy -> radiation -> light frequency, something, something. It's also possible for gem color to change over time... infants and toddlers typically have duller, redder colors. Yours truly was the first person in recorded history to be born with purple gems. ;)

-Being relatively long-lived as we are, our written histories are frustratingly sparse. My father amassed quite a collection, though.

I could go on, but I have other things to do. That should satisfy for now.

Ah, but here’s one more for the road…

Something many people assume is that I'm entirely nude in my final form--untrue. There’s a thin layer of protective, flexible armor over the skin of important nerve clusters; the area you've all been so doggedly curious about parts during intimacy. I hope that clears things up. Now stop asking.

#text response #long response #lore dump... #((my gf came up with the light frequency thing and i thought it was super neat so i included it!! thanks babe))

[thissmycomingofage]

OK you know what ? Fuck that. Fuck her. That's it. I'm done with her. Done with her.

#never expect any positive taylor related content on this blog again #that's the straw that breaks the camel back #he's a college student!!! #using public data!!!! #elon fucking musk didn't drag him to court #and with this coming to light right after the grammys and just before the eras tour starts again? #oh isn't that convenient #I'm so mad #so mad you can't get it! #the energy I wasted defending her #I'll never get that back #I'm this close to wish I never even grew an interest in her music because it's too precious to me to ever let go #but her as a person..? we're so done #“direct and irreparable harm #as well as emotional and physical distress.” #“no legitimate interest in or public need for this information #other than to stalk #harass #and exert dominion and control.” #fuck you fuck you fuck you #can you be less self aware ??? #we do care actually to know how one woman destroys our planet without a trace of care #this is sickening I swear to god #this is a pure pr move filled with nastiness and manipulation #they claim to act following the law but do not present any of said laws #funny how she's the only celeb to take suck actions #SO funny right?? #artist: taylor swift #text #oli schist!

[kyra45]

Keys guide to scam spotting

Hi! I’m Key/Jess and I’ll be giving you a detailed explanation on how to spot scam accounts with commonly known examples such as what they do or what to look out for. All this information is meant to serve as a post that can be easily understood with information of my own and tips of my own. Any tips I give here is my own and any resemblance to other info is entirely a coincidence. I will make this post as accessible as possible for ease of readability so it is all plain text and no big letters beside the top so it has a title. This is mostly based around pet donation scammers but can be used to spot other scams as well.

—

What is a scam post on tumblr? A scam post is when someone is using information that isn’t their own and claiming they need money but are using a stolen story as theirs. Their situation, while it is real most of the time, is actually from another site and isn’t their situation. Usually a search of it will show any posts but this works best if you used Google or another search engine. However, this process isn’t always reliable. Scam posts are posts that are not truthful and deceive users into donating by having stolen content.

—

There are a few things to keep in mind that will help you figure out if an account contacting you is a scammer and usually, most of the time, you will find it is a legitimate person if you just kindly ask them for verification with any personal details removed. However, some blogs will never reply and may block you or ignore you because they don’t have any interest in proving who they are. It’s not uncommon for these scammers to wave away questions or turn off anon asks or asks off overall so no one can ask them anything. They may even turn off messages to further prevent any concerns being addressed and try to avoid suspicion.

—

One thing to keep in mind is how the account contacting you would have located you. Do you have a popular post that’s breached containment? Did you share a post that may be trending or fandom related? Any of these may lead to someone contacting you an asking you for donations be it through asks or direct messages. If your DMs are closed, the account may send you an ask telling you to message them first because they are desperate and then when contacted they ask you for like a thousand dollars on the spot. If you wonder why I suggest limiting your messages, it’s because people don’t like getting these and will mark it as spam. Scammers also do this to avoid public confrontation. But know not everyone doing this is scamming.

—

Another thing to keep in mind is how the ask was worded that the account sent you. Did it tell you to answer privately because they don’t want anyone calling them a spammer or because they would prefer you to message them instead? This is a very common type of scam ask and one that’s unfortunately extremely easy to get and see if you share trending/popular posts. Most often these are asks related to a sick pet by a blog that is only an hour old or a week old if you check the date of their pinned post. If they detect even the slighted doubt in your reply or question back? They block you.

—

Lastly, it doesn’t hurt to also ask questions to the blog who contacts you and see if they can provide clarification on anything you may be concerned over. This can be showing more images with personal info edited out or explaining any discrepancies in the info they supplied. For example, it could be how the images their using don’t match up with their information or how the story their using doesn’t seem to make sense because it’s not collaborating with any specific details they had already given. It may also be the supporting link they supply doesn’t match up the currency they request because the county doesn’t use the specific kind of currency they claim to need. More so if they don’t give any currency conversion rates. You can also check for backdated posts by turning on timestamps and checking the date of the first post if it’s easy to locate and seeing if it matched the reblog date in ‘other notes’. Some accounts will make posts look older in order to be deceptive and make the account look older then it really is.

—

Additionally, some scams are blogs who connect you saying they can help you but they want to give you a check and ask you to cash it or give them your banking information and phone number. These blogs are never legitimate people wanting to help you if your post has links that lead to ways to send support. Their are legitimate people who would help you that don’t ask for personal information using a blog that has no pfp, no bio, and has no posts. Treat these kind of blank accounts as bots. Report them and block them.

—

In closing, it is necessary to research the information you see in some posts and accounts to make sure it is a legitimate blog and not a scammer trying to make a quick buck. Not every blog you see asking for help is a scam account and generally most of them can easily provide proof their legitimate such as having several close friends, a blog that’s extremely old with tons of posts, or provides plenty of information in their posts that clearly explains their situation and shows the images they use is their own and don’t resort to a temper tantrum when questioned or when concerns are brought up.

If you found this post useful, feel free to share it or add your own tips to it! This is just based around my own personal encounters over the months of compiling information.

#long post #longpost #scam #kyra45 speaks #how to spot a scam blog

[nick-nocturne]

Hello! I recently got into your content with Welcome home, and I scrolled on your blog for a bit. I saw that you have... some sort of rivalry/beef with matpat of the theorist channels, and I wanted to know your thoughts on his retirement. As someone who grew up watching his game theory videos, and having those game theory videos, particularly the fnaf theory videos, be the reason I was able to fit in and share common interests with my peers in middle and high school when the fnaf craze was still going strong? It was hard to hear your criticism of one of my beloved childhood figures. But you helped me realize that I had put matpat up on a pedestal because of his videos and because of my childhood nostalgia, and that I didn't need to do that. I do wonder if you think that matpat has gotten better, that he's not as bad or egotistical as he was before. There are many questions I would like to ask. But I'll stick with only one.

So, rivalry/beef/hatred or whatever feelings you hold towards matpat aside, how do you feel about matpat retiring from YouTube? Are you happy? Elated to see a rival or opponent gone? Or do you feel something else about seeing him leave the public sphere. I'd just like to know your opinion, considering your strong feelings on him before.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Nocturne.

An angel must've tapped you to ask this, considering how much I've been thinking about this lately. ::3 The majority of heat I've ever lobbed against MatPat in prior years can best be described as angst, a lot of it unwarranted. I've had issues with his business practices, his content practices, and a lot of his content approaches--but that never called for the kind of flippant sneering I used to exhibit towards him. I've had criticism of MatPat and can't say I saw Game Theory as favorably as I felt it could have been--and I wish I could tell myself from a few years ago to accept that feeling and chill, especially when I knew I still respected his passion, his dedication, and his impact. I feel really good about MatPat retiring and it's for exactly two reasons: he gets to leave on happy terms, on his own terms, after fulfilling a career of over a decade being a trailblazer on YouTube who legitimately has inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a truly positive way; and he gets to pass his position to someone else and give them a chance at what is, for coverage in certain areas of art creation, the top of the mountain. I also thought while watching his goodbye video that he's clearly been thinking a ton about how he's done his work on YouTube, and the impact he's had through his methods, good and bad--I could hear it in his words and the nuances. He's been reflecting, that's for sure, and it informed the way he sat down to talk about the journey. I also felt a lot of resonating with things he said, and there were moments in that goodbye video that I truly understood him and know exactly how he feels. I felt I could have sat on that couch with him and had a conversation as a guy who gets it, because this many years on, I do get it. And while I don't have as much in common with MatPat as I do Jamie of Inside A Mind, or Jeff of Jeffiot, or Goose Boose, there's common ground he and I could talk very warmly over. Ultimately, I am happy he gets to leave in happiness, with what he's built in hands he trusts, and that he knows his first baby--Game Theory--is going to be safe. I wish him, very sincerely, so much happiness and all the fulfillment that opening his life and getting more time as a father, husband, and man will bring him.

[patricia-von-arundel]

FOR ANYONE IN FLORIDA:

Governor Ronald McDonald McDipshit is trying to require public colleges to hand over info on transgender (or, I assume, otherwise gender-nonconforming) students.

Under both FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), this is illegal.

FERPA protects your college records if that college receives federal funding. Under FERPA, even your parents cannot request your grades, your classes, or your medical records in the hands of the college (among other things). Circumstances under which records can be shared without your authorization are limited:

"FERPA generally prohibits disclosure without consent, either internally or externally, of personally identifiable information from education records. But it permits (although it does not require) such disclosure without consent in certain situations. These include:

1. to other school officials, including teachers, within the institution who the college determines have legitimate educational interests;

2. to the parents of a student under age 21 concerning the student's violation of any federal, state, or local law or school policy or rule governing alcohol or drug use or possession; and

3. in connection with a health or safety emergency."

(https://www.cga.ct.gov/2005/rpt/2005-R-0195.htm)

HIPAA applies to all medical records, whether held by a college, a hospital, or a private doctor's office. Again, there are guidelines for exactly when your information can be shared without express, written permission from you:

"The Privacy Rule sets rules and limits on who can look at and receive your health information

To make sure that your health information is protected in a way that does not interfere with your health care, your information can be used and shared:

For your treatment and care coordination

To pay doctors and hospitals for your health care and to help run their businesses

With your family, relatives, friends, or others you identify who are involved with your health care or your health care bills, unless you object

To make sure doctors give good care and nursing homes are clean and safe

To protect the public's health, such as by reporting when the flu is in your area

To make required reports to the police, such as reporting gunshot wounds"

In other words, DeSantis cannot legally access your medical (or other college) records, either through the college itself, a hospital, or an individual.

Both FERPA and HIPAA are federal programs, so they apply no matter where you are in the US and how much DeSantis stomps his little feet and yells. FERPA protects your educational records; HIPAA protects your medical records (specifically, PHI, or Protected Health Information). DeSantis could ask to know how many people at the Mickey Mouse Medical Hospital have received prescriptions for hormones, had top or bottom surgery, etc., but he cannot demand access to your name, SSN, birthdate, specific treatment records, etc., unless you provide written authorization for him to do so. Along the same lines, he could demand the College of Rats in the Kitchen and Gators on the Stage tell him how many students total identify as transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid, gender non-conforming, etc. He could even ask for the average GPA of trans students compared to cis students (as a whole). But he cannot - again - ask for your personal records, or any of the information therein, without your express permission.

Don't panic, okay? I know the federal government isn't always trustworthy, but I've spent enough time dealing with both FERPA and HIPAA to know that they take this stuff very seriously. If you need to contact someone about a violation of either -

FERPA (college records) is under the US Department of Education, and you can find more info on reporting a potential violation here:

HIPAA (which covers all your medical info) is under the US Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights, and you can find more info on reporting a violation here:

At the moment, DeSantis is requesting only information not covered by either HIPAA or FERPA: "Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking state universities for the number and ages of their students who sought gender dysphoria treatment, including sex reassignment surgery and hormone prescriptions, according to a survey released Wednesday."

Source:

If you are concerned that your records either as a student or a patient may have been shared without your permission, either because of this or in any other circumstance, you have rights.

Hang in there.

[justenjoythegossip]

The polarization of the fandom and the impossible closure: a few thoughts

Did Chris and Abba spend the holidays together?

There was some controversy this week-end about what a mod wrote about a TikTok vid posted by Dustbin showing that Abba spent the holidays in Portugal. Dustbin then took out this vid very quickly after realizing his mistake. 

I won’t name this mod, not because I don’t trust them (I do trust them) but because they have been harassed and attacked enough as it is. I do find puzzling that people (anon and other mods) were so interested and aggressive in their asks, as if that piece of information would change how they view this shitshow. 

No thanksgiving together and yet…

People know for an absolute fact that Chris and Abba didn’t spend Thanksgiving together thanks to the GQ event in Portugal and yet it did nothing to change anybody’s mind. People who think they are exclusively pr were obviously not very surprised. And people who think they are a legitimate couple with a PR spin didn’t suddenly start believing Chris and Abba were exclusively PR. And why would they? It is true that some real legitimate couples sometimes spend the holidays apart. And for all sorts of reasons. One of their family members might be sick. Or you might need to flash a ring at an event in your home country from a brand that sponsor your “RS” so that a trillion articles can be written about it… (Sidenote: contrary to what happened with that horrific cringy Valentine’s story, we can appreciate that the publications published those articles after the event happened and not before…)

So again, the information that Chris and Abba didn’t spend Christmas or New Year’s Eve together is unlikely to change anybody’s mind. But isn’t it the point?

The polarization of the fandom 

From the start of this shitshow, people have been fed so many breadcrumbs (follows and likes and emojis for ex) that were designed to have people speculate and invent an entire narrative about this “RS”. And since then, their teams have continued with the same strategy, the purposefully badly manufactured PR has enabled them to feed both “team real” and “team PR”. Can we just take a moment to look at the terminology used to describe the two opposing rival camps? The polarization of this fandom is both obvious and has been quite useful in keeping people engaged. And just like in politics, the tactics of divide and conquer were used over and over to keep people’s interest alive and to distract from the truth. Each event, each photo, each whatever were dissected by the fandom and could be interpreted in different ways to feed whatever narrative they chose to believe. 

The closure his fandom is looking for… 

One thing is certain, the truth is absolute and it’s out of our reach as we can only catch a glimpse of what is being fed to us. Some of Chris’ friends have made their profiles public long enough to leak a pic before returning to being private again, some material (pics, videos) were badly altered on purpose, we were shown the terrible behind the scenes of their first papwalk… Breadcrumbs, so many of them for us to try to put the puzzle back together. At this point, not much will have anybody change their opinion on the matter.  But more importantly, people are unlikely to get the closure they need. Even when they officially break up, people won’t hear from any of them that it was just a show. And a catastrophic one it was.

[seeker-of-stories19]

Autistic Jaime Reyes Headcannons

(Warning for descriptions of autistic meltdown)

- Bonding with Khaji makes his sensory issues so much worse at first but eventually they work it out and Khaji learns that enhancing his senses doesn’t actually keep him safer because he gets so overwhelmed he pays less attention to his surroundings and not more

- Jaime realizes that Khaji can manipulate his sensory experience, they can’t completely stop him from having a meltdown (or more accurately they won’t because cutting off sensory information completely leaves him vulnerable) but they start tuning out background noises when they feel it’s safe

- It won’t stop him from having meltdowns completely but it makes it so he can usually hold it together until he gets home or somewhere safe

- Takes a lot of stress off of him about how people perceive him as an autistic Latino male and the danger that comes with that

- There’s definitely a few instances where Jaime does get negative attention and it is a fight to keep Khaji from transforming him because that’s not going to make some racist ableist asshole feel less threatened by him

- Misses being in Gotham where he could stim way more and people didn’t care, everyone was so desensitized to craziness that anything short of an imminent threat to there lives was unremarkable

- He could flap his hands, mumble, bounce etc. without anyone even glancing up

- Sometimes he forgets how different Palmera is and does something that brings a lot of attention to them which always makes Milagro tease him intensely, only to turn on anyone else who so much as looks at him wrong

- Everyone thinks Jaime is the only autistic one in the family but whenever anyone says it he just stares at Rudy pointedly

- He’s so obviously autistic but completely clueless

- Secretly though Jaime is grateful because he thinks his dad knew how to help him as a kid because he grew up with Rudy

- Got diagnosed in seventh or eight grade when he had a really good teacher who stuck out the whole public school process with his family because everyone else dismissed them

- It probably saved his life in high school to know he wasn’t losing his mind even though it legitimately felt like it

- Does decent in professional interactions and with adults but cannot for the life of him make friends, the only people he knows at school are through Milagro or kids he knew growing up

- Isn’t very interested in kids his age anyway because he doesn’t relate to them and even when he likes someone he’s not good at pursuing a friendship

- Doesn’t have much of a social life but gets perfect grades and has a job to save money for college

- Is definitely really lonely but struggles to sustain relationships even though he wants friends

- Milagro, Rudy, and his dad are his best and only friends which makes losing him even harder because he’s so close to his family

- College is a real game changer for him though, he’s still awkward but he can find a lot more people who want to talk about his interests and generally more people who are accepting or even just used to weirdness because again, Gotham

- He has more casual friends and goes out from time to time which makes his family really happy but a part of him is always a little lonely

- Being bonded to Khaji is absolutely remarkable because for the first time someone understands him without him even needing to explain things

- And Jenny is also an anomaly, she’s the first one outside of his family who he really bonds with deeply, at least outside of symbiotic relationships with alien tech

- She’s neurodivergent as well and they balance each other out really well, Jenny helps Jaime get out more because she’s very social but naturally communicates in a way that makes sense to him and helps include him in social situations

- Khaji will sometimes use the suit as sort of a weighted vest to apply firm pressure to his body, there are times it’s too overstimulating during a meltdown but sometimes it really helps him

- The first time he has a meltdown after fully bonding with Khaji is after getting back to Jenny’s dads house with his family, Khaji can feel something is really wrong with him and is freaking out a bit about not being able to put a name to it when Jaime collapses in the shower crying, rocking, and pulling his hair

- Khaji absolutely looses their shit but when they try and control Jaime and make him stop it only increases his distress and after he gets so panicked and overwhelmed he throws up Khaji stops trying to interfere even when he slams the heels of his hands into his head

- When he finally cries himself out he stays curled up at the bottom of the shower until Rudy comes to bring him clothes

- He seems to understand what happened and gets Jaime dried off and into cleanish clothes, tucking him into bed

- Jaime’s thoughts are so jumbled even Khaji can’t make sense of them and he passes out pretty quick and sleeps twelve hours only to not get out of bed the next day, scrolling through Instagram and barely communicating with Khaji for two days while his family brings him meals and he barely moves

- But the time he’s feeling more normal Khaji is losing their shit and he ends up having to explain the technicalities of autism which goes better than any other time he’s had to explain it because Khaji could feel everything already and just didn’t have the technical understanding to support him

- It’s still rough to find a balance between them of handling Jaime’s challenges, sometimes Khaji accidentally makes it worse by interfering too much but they learn how to manage things together

- When he’s overstimulated and he needs complete silence he flies to space until he’s grounded enough to come home

- He wasn’t a runner as a kid but his parents would turn around and he’d be in a tree or on a roof

- Would literally climb anything in his sight, even at University he snuck into the roof with a weighted blanket, headphones, and comics whenever he needed a moment

- He’s a major nerd, a lot of his special interests are anime and video games, and of course justice and law

- Even being aware of the injustice in the world and having faced it his whole life as a disabled immigrant he still believes in people and he can get really down when he can’t help everyone both through his job and being a superhero

- He never had a lot of vocal stims as a kid but since bonding with Khaji he’s constantly making clicking and humming noises

- It drives Milagro crazy but Rudy thinks it’s cool

- It takes a year or two before he goes back to school and when he does he stays in Palmera city this time to be close to his family and be able to watch the city

- He graduates with honors and his family is actually able to come this time

- Was incredibly obsessive about his schoolwork and is no better with his actual job once he finds one

- He won’t except a job from Jenny at Kord Industries but he regularly helps her out with looking over legal stuff and sometimes gets in way too deep

- He can’t ever leave anything unfinished and it drives Khaji crazy

- Khaji spends more time combatting Jaime’s interoception issues than protecting him from supervillains, they’re constantly reminding to eat, drink, sleep, and go to the bathroom

- His eyes will flicker yellow as he starts getting overwhelmed and turn gold before having a meltdown which helps his family try and get him somewhere safe where he can calm down

- Although it’ll sometimes happen for other reasons too which can confuse people

- Gets so overstimulated after sex, he will literally just curl up in bed for hours and sleep or watch YouTube

- Jenny and Khaji take good care of him, making sure he’s staying hydrated and keeping the sensory environment as controlled as possible so he can rest

- At first he’s nervous about how Jenny will feel but it becomes a running joke that they have to clear their afternoon after having sex

- Jaimes family are always trying to find ways to help him move through life easier but it doesn’t stop his mom from freaking out when she realizes Jaime goes on the roof less because he’s flying to space instead

- Khaji becomes Jaimes biggest confidant because they’re the only one who can truly understand what’s happening in his head

#jaime reyes #blue beetle #blue beetle 2023 #milagro reyes #rudy reyes #khaji da #autistic jaime reyes #jenny kord #dcu #headcannons #reyes family #dc

[copperbadge]

you might have answered this somewhere before, but what's the story behind calling it radio free monday?

Oh, the question comes up every few years but if I can't find the old answers to it on tumblr I don't expect anyone else to :D

Radio Free Monday was created in response to a very old wank about fandom fundraisers; prior to roughly 2005, it wasn't the acceptable and common occurrence it is today. I was asked to publicize some fundraisers and I did so, but (as happens with popular blogs) that started a spiral where every time I posted one, I got requests to post three more. It wasn't just that I could reach a largeish audience within fandom, but also that my posting fundraisers gave them a kind of weight, legitimizing both the need and the ask. The dilemma became how to share all these fundraising posts while not becoming a fundraising-post blog, which would lower my readership and thus get those donation requests to fewer people. So I decided to do a once-weekly links roundup.

I decided since I was going to be posting on Mondays I would call it Radio Free Monday; I used the Radio Free title mostly on a whim, because I thought it sounded cool. "Radio Free" is actually primarily a term for a propaganda tool; the CIA began setting up "Radio Free [country]" all over the world so that they would have a broadcast presence in countries of "special interest" to the US intelligence apparatus. You can get an idea of the history at the Radio Free Europe article here.

It's had some evolutions since then; until I introduced the form, people would just comment on a post or email me, and I had to keep all the requests together and make sure I had all the data. The form allows me to weed out fakers (they generally won't bother filling out a form, even a very simple one that doesn't capture any information involuntarily), make sure I always get the pronouns right, and ensure that I never have to go chasing down a URL. I still code it all by hand, but because I have a spreadsheet, the coding has gone down from "roughly two hours on Sunday night" to "roughly forty minutes on Monday morning".

(Funny story: since instituting the form in 2014, the fact that I ask for pronouns and include they/them as an option has led to two nonbinary awakenings and one trans coming-out that I'm aware of.)

So yeah -- mostly "it sounded cool" combined with "seemed kinda apt" :D

#radio free monday #magic-gps

[vague-humanoid]

Hamdi Mohamud, then a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia, found herself caught up in that scheme in 2011, when one of Weyker's witnesses, Muna Abdulkadir, tried to attack her and her friends at knifepoint. Mohamud called the police, and Weyker intervened—on behalf of Abdulkadir. She arrested Mohamud and her friends for allegedly tampering with a federal witness, and Mohamud subsequently spent two years in jail before the trumped-up charges were dismissed.

While Mohamud lost those two years of her life, Weyker has not paid any price—not in spite of her position, but because of it. Since the officer conducted her investigation as part of a federal task force, she is entitled to absolute immunity and cannot be sued, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled last year.

It's not because the "sex trafficking" investigation—which consisted of Weyker conjuring fake information, editing police reports, fabricating evidence, and lying under oath, among other things—was legitimate. On the contrary, the court says it was "plagued with problems from the start" and notes that Weyker employed "lies and manipulation" to put people behind bars. Legally speaking, none of that matters.

What does matter is a line of Supreme Court jurisprudence that has made suing a rights-violating federal officer almost out of the question. Had Weyker acted in her capacity as a state or local cop, Mohamud would have been permitted to bring her claim before a jury of her peers. Yet the most powerful officers are held to the lowest standard of accountability.

Mohamud hopes to change that standard by asking the Supreme Court to hear her case, which she made official last week.

The problem here isn't qualified immunity, the doctrine that shields police officers and other state actors from federal civil suits unless the way the government violated your rights has been litigated almost exactly in a prior court precedent. That's an onerous standard to meet. It has, for example, protected two police officers who allegedly stole $225,000 while executing a search warrant, because no prior court ruling had said stealing in those circumstances is unconstitutional. The legal principle has been at the center of criminal justice reform efforts over the last year.

But Mohamud cleared that hurdle. The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota ruled that Weyker's actions so clearly made a mockery of the Constitution that she could not skirt the suit. The 8th Circuit then overturned that decision on appeal, citing Weyker's temporary federal badge, while in the same breath acknowledging the depravity of her actions.

"Qualified immunity makes it very, very difficult to sue government officials," says Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public interest law firm representing Mohamud. "This makes it impossible."

There's a Supreme Court decision that should, in theory, give Mohamud the avenue to redress she needs. In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971), the high court allowed a victim to go before a jury after federal cops conducted a drug raid on his apartment without a warrant and later strip-searched him at the courthouse.

But since then the Court has undermined its own decision in almost comical ways. In 2017, the justices ruled in Ziglar v. Abbasi that lower courts should pinpoint "special factors counseling hesitation" when considering suits against federal cops. In practice, that has meant just about whatever a judge can cook up.

@chrisdornerfanclub @el-shab-hussein

[evermoredeluxe]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/

By Drew Harwell

Taylor Swift’s attorneys have threatened legal action against a Florida college student who runs social media accounts tracking the flights of her and other celebrities’ private jets.

Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, has for years run accounts that log the takeoffs and landings of planes and helicopters owned by hundreds of billionaires, politicians, Russian oligarchs and other public figures, along with estimates of their planet-warming emissions. The accounts use publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration and volunteer hobbyists who can track the aircraft via the signals they broadcast.

Sweeney’s accounts fueled a free-speech debate in late 2022 when X, formerly Twitter, banned Sweeney for sharing what the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, said were his “assassination coordinates.” The accounts don’t say who travels on the aircraft or where they go once the planes land.

In December, Swift’s attorney at the Washington law firm Venable wrote Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter saying Swift would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if he did not stop his “stalking and harassing behavior.”

Sweeney’s accounts had caused Swift and her family “direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress,” and had heightened her “constant state of fear for her personal safety,” the lawyer, Katie Wright Morrone, wrote, according to a copy of the letter sent to the home of Sweeney’s parents. Sweeney shared the letter with The Washington Post.

“While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client,” Morrone wrote. She added that there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”

The pop star has routinely faced stalkers showing up outside her homes, Morrone wrote, and one man now faces stalking and harassment charges after being arrested last month outside her townhouse in Manhattan.

Asked whether Swift’s representatives knew of any evidence that stalkers had used the jet-tracking accounts, Tree Paine, a spokeswoman for Swift, said, “We cannot comment on any ongoing police investigation but can confirm the timing of stalkers suggests a connection. His posts tell you exactly when and where she would be.”

Sweeney, 21, told The Post he saw the letter as an attempt to scare him away from sharing public data. The accounts offer only an incomplete sketch of which cities Swift might currently be in, similar to the public schedules for her concerts or any NFL games she might attend, he said. And the letters, he added, were sent to him at a time when she faced criticism over her flights’ environmental impact.

“This information is already out there,” he said. “Her team thinks they can control the world.”

Private-jet flights are routinely criticized for their “disproportionately high” impact on climate change, and Sweeney’s accounts have often been used to name and shame their most famous passengers. In 2022, the accounts were cited in an analysis that estimated Swift was the “biggest celebrity [carbon dioxide] polluter” of the year.

Her publicist told The Post then that the analysis was flawed because her jet was often loaned out to other people. Paine told The Post on Monday that Swift bought more than double the “carbon credits” needed to offset her travel before her recent tour kicked off.

Around the time of the December letter, Facebook and Instagram disabled the accounts Sweeney had created to track Swift’s air travel, saying they broke the platforms’ privacy rules, he said. He began posting those updates onto accounts on Facebook and Instagram that he uses to log the travel of planes used by a range of stars, called Celeb Jets. Then, last month, Morrone sent a second letter saying his posts about Swift’s aircraft constituted “harassing conduct.”

The letters included the names of three other Venable attorneys experienced in litigation, including one who says on LinkedIn that she is the founding member of the firm’s “Digital Crisis Planning & Response client solution” and helps “high-profile individuals” manage crises of varying magnitude, such as “celebrity disgrace events.”

Morrone did not respond to requests for comment. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, also did not respond.

Planes in the sky regularly broadcast their locations via transponders so air traffic controllers and other pilots can see where they’re going. Anyone on the ground can pick up those signals using a cheap device, known as an ADS-B receiver, that is widely sold online.

The FAA allows plane owners to request their flights be hidden in the federal data that undergirds popular consumer flight-tracking websites, such as FlightAware. Swift’s jet appears to be blocked through such a request.

But many aviation hobbyists feed their raw data into independent websites, such as ADS-B Exchange, that those FAA requests do not cover. Criminal investigators, journalists and researchers have used those sites to look up historical flight paths or see who’s flying overhead.

Swift, Time magazine’s 2023 “person of the year,” made history Sunday as the only musician to win four best-album Grammy Awards, and her every movement is closely watched by paparazzi and superfans. Her “Eras Tour” last year was credited with boosting the local economies of every city she stopped in; one study cited by The Post estimated that “Swifties” spent about $93 million per show.

Her travel plans have drawn increased attention in recent weeks as she’s flown to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play for the Kansas City Chiefs, including from conservatives who have seized on the trips to criticize her.

They have also become a key point of interest for her fans, especially because her upcoming concert in Tokyo is just hours before Kelce’s scheduled Super Bowl appearance on Sunday in Las Vegas. Even Japan’s embassy in Washington recognized the public’s interest, posting on X last week, “Despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference, the Embassy can confidently Speak Now to say that … she should comfortably arrive” on time.

Sweeney’s accounts have in recent months tracked two jets that were owned by Nashville-based companies and registered to be operated by a Swift company called Firefly Entertainment, according to FAA documents. They do not track who travels on the planes or any other chartered flights.

Swift’s spokeswoman told The Post that “there is only one plane.” One of the planes previously tracked by Sweeney’s accounts, a Dassault Falcon 900, was marked in FAA records last week as being transferred to a real estate company. Each jet sells for about $25 million, according to brokerage estimates cited last month by The Post.

After X banned him and his accounts in December 2022, Sweeney opened new Facebook and Instagram accounts for Swift, former president Donald Trump, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reality star Kim Kardashian and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, among others. All of those accounts except for Swift’s remain online — including the accounts for Zuckerberg, who runs both sites. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Sweeney continues to post Swift jet updates to other platforms, including Bluesky, Mastodon and Telegram. To abide by X’s rule against real-time location tracking, he also created accounts that post Musk and Swift’s flight updates with a 24-hour delay.

The December letter from Swift’s attorney states that Sweeney’s actions are “in violation of several state laws” but does not specify them. The letter does, however, cite nine anonymous Instagram comments saying the account is “scary,” “pathetic,” “weird,” invasive” and “dangerous” “stalker behavior.”

The letter says Sweeney is “notorious for disregarding the personal safety of others in exchange for public attention and/or requests for financial gain” and cites a message he sent to Musk in 2021, during which he countered Musk’s $5,000 offer to delete the Musk-jet account with a suggestion of $50,000, as first reported by the now-defunct tech blog Protocol. Sweeney said no money was ever exchanged.

After receiving the letters, Sweeney said he asked for help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, which sent his request to a list of attorneys. James Slater, a Florida lawyer who specializes in First Amendment and internet speech issues, responded on Sweeney’s behalf to the Venable letter.

Slater wrote that Morrone had not identified any legal claim, that the jet information posed “no threat” to Swift’s safety, and that Sweeney’s account had “engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights,” according to a copy reviewed by The Post. Slater said he has yet to receive a response.

In an interview, Slater said he thought the Swift attorney’s letters were “hyperbolic and unfounded” and sent in hopes that Sweeney would “just delete everything and do what they said.”

“This isn’t about putting a GPS tracker on someone and invading their privacy. It’s using public information to track the jet of a public figure,” he said. “This is their means to try to quash a PR issue and bully my client to have the bad coverage die down.”

#just to have it on here #jet #jack sweeney #arshia talks

[catb-fics]

The issue is that if speculation is actually correct then boundaries can and will be broken ridiculously fast. Then you’ve leaked information not meant to be public knowledge.

I totally get what you’re saying too! Discussing stuff is totally fine to a certain point. I’ve never doubted that you have the band in your best interest. I’m mostly just saying be extra careful about what you put out there now that the ball is rolling. I’m sure a few legitimately will know things (I’ve caught some with legitimacy) and say things not knowing the damage it can cause. Idk if this makes sense. I’m tired. Just be aware :) - 🌴

I’m sorry but I still don’t get the problem here. You’ve shared possible dates/venues in your asks here and info on Reddit (which has a far greater reach than tumblr) and I don’t see how that’s different to the asks I’ve shared from other anons? Even if the info does turn out to be true, I don’t see how sharing that the guys are rumoured to be playing certain gigs would be damaging in any way to the band. No news and silence is disheartening, chatting and speculating about what’s coming up is exciting and builds anticipation.

It’s different to Reddit on here, we don’t have moderators telling us what we can and can’t post, we run personal blogs and we decide what we want to post. We’re not going to start posting Van’s address or info about his family members or private stuff which is actually damaging, we’re a little bit more responsible than that and we are aware that there’s lines you don’t cross.

This little catb tumblr community is great, I don’t want anyone to be put off thinking they can’t chat about the boys with any of the blogs here. If we all stop speculating and chatting about the band for fear of saying stuff that turns out to be true then there would be no point in even being here! I’m really not having a go or trying to pick a fight but I felt like this needed saying.

#catb asks #🌴 anon

[mariacallous]

Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West - and will likely lose - if the West mobilizes its resources to resist the Kremlin. The West’s existing and latent capability dwarfs that of Russia. The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and our Asian allies is over $63 trillion.[1] The Russian GDP is on the close order of $1.9 trillion.[2] Iran and North Korea add little in terms of materiel support. China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia and is unlikely to do so.[3] If we lean in and surge, Russia loses.

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success. The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation and then proceed to Moscow’s next targets, which Russia will also seek to isolate. The Kremlin needs the United States to choose inaction and embrace the false inevitability that Russia will prevail in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s center of gravity is his ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself. The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.

Those whose perspective aligns with the Kremlin’s are not ipso facto Russian dupes. The Kremlin links genuine sentiment and even some legitimate arguments to Russia’s interests in public debate. The Kremlin is also an equal opportunity manipulator. It targets the full spectrum of those making or informing decisions. It partially succeeds on every side of the political spectrum. Perception manipulation is one of the Kremlin’s core capabilities — now unleashed with full force onto the Western public as the Kremlin’s only strategy for winning in Ukraine.[4] That is not a challenge most societies are equipped to contend with.

The United States has the power to deny Russia its only strategy for success, nevertheless. The United States has allowed Russia to play an outsized role in shaping American decision-making, but the United States has also made many sound choices regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine.[5] The key successes achieved by Ukraine and its partners in this war have resulted from strategic clarity.[6] Lost opportunities on the battlefield, on the other hand, have resulted from the West’s failure to connect ground truths to our interests quickly enough to act.[7] Fortunately, the United States faces an easier task in overcoming the Kremlin's manipulations than Russia does in closing the massive gap between Russia's war aims and its capabilities. The United States must surge its support to Ukraine, and it must do so in time. Delays come at the cost of Ukrainian lives, increased risk of failure in Ukraine, and the erosion of the US advantage over Russia, granting the Kremlin time to rebuild and develop capabilities that it intends to use against the West — likely on a shorter timeline than the West assesses.[8]

The United States must defeat Russia’s efforts to alter American will and decision-making for reasons that transcend Ukraine. For the United States to deter, win, or help win any future war, US decisions must be timely, connected to our interests, values, and ground truth, but above all – these decisions must be ours. The US national security community theorizes a lot about the importance of US decision advantage over our adversaries, including timeliness. Russia presents an urgent and real-world requirement for America to do so in practice.

[ohdorothea]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/

(Here is a link to the article without the paywall)

The bit that truly makes me feel like I’m going to set things on fire about this article is where her lawyer says - of the information about how much damage Taylor’s private jet usage does to the planet - there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”

Be so fucking serious! The general public don’t care about her private jet usage to “exert dominion and control” they care because we all live on one fucking planet and she is poisoning it rather than driving a few extra hours to her boyfriend’s football game!

I am so fucking tired of her team (and the fans) acting as if Taylor Swift is a victim in this situation. She is a billionaire choosing her comfort and convince over the welfare of the entire planet.

#I know some friends will disagree with me here but I am trying to stop not saying things because people will disagree

[hot-take-tournament]

Propaganda against the Niel Gaiman take: This person clearly assumes that all celebrities are terrible people (as evidenced by "we should shun him like any other celebrity"), which is just as unnuanced and terrible a view as 'all celebrities are great'. There are good celebrities and bad ones. Don't assume everyone's evil just bc a few are.

As for the "hissy fit" he threw over the Good Omens S2 'leak', it was legitimately a leak. Amazon was not supposed to release that information to the public, and he had no control over it, as he was on strike. Releasing information that was not supposed to be seen until the show's release sure sounds like a leak to me, and when you take into account how much time and effort he and countless other people put into s2, it's understandable that he would be upset.

As for him not supporting the queer community enough, did you miss the bit where he literally said he considers Crowley to be genderfluid? And where he as repeatedly confirmed that he and Aziraphale are in love? And where he has, time and time again, confirmed his support for the queer community?

Sorry for the rant, but Good Omens is one of my favorite shows/special interests so I had to bring out the infodump.

no need to apologise for the rant! propaganda is always encouraged!

#asks #not a poll

[theculturedmarxist]

I think what artists, musicians, writers, pretty much every creative person really, all need to understand is that under capitalism, everything they make is worthless. AI, piracy, whatever, they're all just windmills you're tilting at. Even if by some miracle you did manage to defeat it, it would soon be replaced by some other terrible mechanism which alienates you from your creation, because that's how Capitalism works.

This is just the latest iteration of a process that's been happening for over 500 years now. It's just now instead of enclosing a physical commons for the private profit of aristocrats, oligarchs are enclosing the digital commons. Consolidating the public spaces of forums, message boards, webrings, and other democratically driven online spaces into the few mega-sites of Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and so on has run its course. Now the capitalists have turned to trawling the rest of the internet to try and wring whatever value they can get from it.

And just like the process of enclosure or mechanization or industrialization, there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. They've already scoured the internet for untold trillions of pages of data and images and what not. The damage is done. It doesn't matter what further damage is going to come from it either, because the dirty not-so-secret of the tech world is that this is it. They have no more bright ideas. Pretty much every great thing to Google's name, they bought. All their in house initiatives failed. Google video? Google groups? Google glass? They make their money selling ads that nobody cares about. Same with Facebook. They just spent billions to create a crappy Second Life clone that no one gives a fuck about. These tech corporations are massive, lumbering, doomed empires, especially now that covid has pretty much brought the era of 0%-interest loans to an end. Without the billions of dollars of venture capital being pumped into Uber and Twitter and all the rest, now they've got to actually start making money, which none of them are actually able to do. Now they're desperate for some new gimmick to latch onto to try and turn a profit or attract ever dwindling venture capital. Bitcoin was the last big scam. Remember Libra? NFTs were the big thing after that. NFT images! NFT tv shows! NFT games! Here we are a year later and no one fucking talks about them any more. AI is just more of this magic bean bullshit.

Aside from all of that, even if AI was managed to be beaten back, you can assume that whatever the cure the powers that be settle on will be worse than the disease. Whatever "protections" get put into place will only be used against individual artists. At the end of the day, these big corps are just going to end up keeping all the information they've already stolen, the algorithms they used to steal it, and then will put laws into place legitimizing that theft after the fact. You're simply not going to win that fight, because the battle's already been lost.

The only long term solution to this is to attack the root cause, which is a system that relies upon exploitation in order to accumulate profit. Profits are what feed these massive corporate beasts, and as they're starved by falling profits, they'll only grow more ravenous and rapacious. We're only at the opening stages of this trend now, and things are only going to get worse.

#inteligência artificial #artificial intelligence #capitalism #economics #art #artists

[obsidiannebula]

There's a huge Google antitrust trial going on right now that's getting very little coverage because Judge Mehta has allowed enormous portions of the trial and exhibits to be sealed. Yosef Weitzman has been covering the trial in his Substack newsletter, Big Tech on Trial. Some days he's the only journalist in the courtroom. There was a third-party motion to broadcast a public audio feed of this historic trial, but the government's laywers gave it no support, and the judge denied it. Judge Mehta has also sealed large amounts of documents, siding with Google lawyers who requested it on the grounds that they'd be "clickbait." They're just too interesting! We can't let people know about them! And don't forget the internal documents Google doesn't have to disclose on highly dubious grounds of "attorney-client privilege." Mehta also chose not to sanction Google for continuing to use "history-off" chats that delete after 24 hours after being told not to, because destruction of evidence much!?!?

Huge portions of the trial are also conducted entirely secretly in sealed sessions, further making it difficult for anyone to cover the trial, because very few people can travel to DC and spend ten weeks sitting outside the courtroom waiting to for the courtroom to briefly open up.

An enormous volume of evidence is being hidden from the public in this trial. While there are legitimate reasons to seal some documents or depositions, such as protecting private medical information or protecting trade secrets, the amount of information being withheld in this case is inapprpriately and suspiciously great. Anything that might embarass Google is concealed without hesitation. Public access to this trial needs to be increased, for the sake of transparency. We cannot allow corporate giants to conduct their wrongdoings in secrecy. And we need to shine a bigger spotlight on these proceedings, obscured as they may be. They need to know that the world is watching and taking note of their conduct. Google cannot get away with what they're doing, what they've done.

#google antitrust trial #google #technology