It’s because they don’t see 99% of us as people.

When are they gonna ban fake mustaches and makeup?

Moderation systems on social media platforms aim to remove overt extremist propaganda. These systems work imperfectly, but overt propaganda is unlikely to reach mass audiences before being removed.

Instead, far-right actors often use generative AI to mask racial ideology behind seemingly benign tropes from science fiction and fantasy. This allows a “de-demonising” of their ideas. Elf-like depictions of the “Aryan” inhabitants of Agartha, or footage of an underground utopia, make the idea of a white ethnostate seem palatable.

The engaging aesthetic keeps people watching longer. In turn, this triggers the algorithm to push the video to wider audiences.

I may have agreed with this a year ago, but here’s what’s going on with my son school’s phone ban.

The school requires the children to bring in a laptop from home. The laptop mine brings is controlled via parental controls. My child is a stickler for the rules, so the phone is only used to let us know if parental controls need to be adjusted during school hours because of a change in lessons, or to let us know if there’s a problem on the way home (he has a disability and sometimes he needs a lift from a bus stop, and he’s also been late the bus after school before, so I’ll have texts going between me, him, and the bus driver). It’s never been an issue for him and I’ve never had a complaint from the school. One of the administrative personnel also told me that he’s really good about not using his phone and would never use it when he wasn’t supposed to.

The school banned phones because they wanted the children to be more social. I complained to the school about the above and that my son has already had many issues with bullies and taking away their phones might cause more incidents. The school told me not to worry, not many kids are really using their phones and a lot of them are either going to some sort of computer gaming room on their breaks or at lunch time, or they’re gaming on their laptops, and none of that is expected to change. So, what exactly was the point?

My son also raised a complaint about possible theft. They assured him that the phones would be securely stored in a safe. Within a week the kids knew the code and the school said, “well, it was inevitable”.

At this point, all of the kids on phones in school stuff seems mostly like theater to me. I’m sure it’s happening in some places, but it doesn’t seem to have been an issue at my son’s school. To some extent, I wonder how much of it has to do with teachers not wanting to risk being recorded, but they still have laptops so I don’t know what exactly they are doing this for. The whole thing seems like it could’ve been avoided by either giving more punishments to the children that are using their phones inappropriately or giving special dispensation to the students that never use it inappropriately.

Don’t look up how many audits it fails.

Would these tokens be unique per website visit? Are they generated by the user or the government?

I agree with you. My comment is mostly exhaustion, wishful thinking, and self-censorship.

At this point I almost want to say, “sure, do whatever you want” then change the locks and remodel once they’re out the door. Then prosecute like there’s no tomorrow.

Or we can just go after the platforms for knowingly manipulating everyone. And for their invasive data collection. This is probably one reason why Meta spent more on lobbying (primarily for age verification) than Boeing and Lockheed Martin did on lobbying last year. Once the kids are identified, no one gives a shit about the adults so the problem (for them) just fades away.

A parent can do the age verification captcha for Johnny. All of this is bullshit once they start thinking any of this will stop kids who have the help of an adult (actually, already is imo). Anyone ever hear of kids getting adults to buy alcohol for them in the past?

Seems more likely he’d be want them in case he can invoke the insurrection act.

There’s a push for companies to constantly increase their profits. That means sooner or later prices must rise. Sooner or later labor must be paid less. In fact, this has been happening for decades. Prices have been rising faster than wages for decades.

Seems to me like labor should get paid more and there should be something (regulations?) to prevent prices from rising when it happens.

That’s when you take a break and let someone else deal with it until you’re ready again. Or focus on a different fight and let that one go. You’re irreplaceable, but your participation in that specific fight is not essential.

I hope you can find a break. I get tired of it, too. Sometimes just not reading the news or social media for a while is enough to recharge. The news and online commentary makes it impossible to even get small breaks that would’ve been common two decades ago and the consumption of it all can be exhausting enough to prevent us from taking any other actions.

Every person against this sort of thing that checks out is just giving them less resistance. It sucks to have to deal with it, and it’s a constant fight, but you’re not just fighting for yourself.