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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • That’s a very black and white way of putting it. As long as you’re an adult who can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and you’re not spending hours obsessed with it I don’t think it’s unhealthy. The way you phrase ‘avoid it completely’ makes it sound like you’re going out of your way to avoid it already.

    (I think the problems are coming through with the generation being ‘brought up on porn’, and thinking real sex is like it is in the videos online but that’s a different story really.)





  • No, I just think he’s very bad at reining in an extremely impulsive and volatile personality which leads to him making rash decisions. Also he is always wanting to make sweeping changes rather than gradual ones which may have worked with Tesla and Space but doesn’t suit Twitter.

    And lastly, I don’t think he really cares that much either way - as others have said, he had to be forced to buy Twitter remember. He’s got this albatross around his neck which is losing him money every day. He probably resents it a bit, has probably nearly hit the truth that the only way you could make a social media company profitable is to make everyone pay - except for the fact that almost everyone then leaves.

    I think he’s too much of a wild card for anyone to involve in their cunning plan. I mean regardless of politics would you recruit him for your masterplan?


  • I just started using it for Android the last month or so when Chrome dropped the flag feature that let you toggle dark mode for websites with system dark mode.

    I have a VPN with an adblocker so that aspect of Chrome never bothered me so much. Chrome felt like it worked slightly smoother but at the end of the day a browser is a browser and Firefox does the job. (Samsung’s browser is actually surpringly good for those with a Samsung device looking for a Chrome alternative)

    Firefox does seem more trustworthy overall, although I’ve learned by now that trusting tech companies is not a sensible thing to do.


  • I’ve been using a VPN, blockers, all sorts in the UK to disguise some of my online activity from Google and other companies so if I’m just doing the same thing to avoid the government there’s not much difference.

    The fact that I still use Google products is a lapse and due to laziness on my part…

    Of course it could be a vote winner for Starmer at the next election to say he’ll repeal it on free speech grounds of he played it right. But then the opposition could spin it as him not wanting to protect children online so he probably won’t have the guts to risk it.



  • VPN subscriptions in the UK will be a lucrative market then for people wanting access to, let’s see, Wikipedia…

    I’m interested to know what the Signal President meant when she said she’s much more optimistic about working with the government than she originally was.

    The thing is it obviously does come from good intentions, and it’s very rare you’ll find me saying that about something to do with the Tories. But it’s so obviously the wrong approach and yet here we are. Thanks for nothing. Yet again.


  • Still use Google search, but switched out Chrome for Firefox recently and it’s working out well. I do still use their calendar, docs apps but I’ve never been a big one for YouTube. I do have some Google speakers though and use Maps all the time - so I guess out of big tech Google is the one I’m suckered into the most…

    Stopped using Facebook around 2016 and deleted my Twitter account a few years before that, basically when the novelty had long gone and it all seemed to be more toxic.

    In the UK around that time it was just everyone going on about Brexit on Facebook but even before then people weren’t sharing stuff about themselves (with good reason) so it was just low effort memes). Use Facebook once in a blue moon to get in touch with really old friends

    Didn’t miss either, although I recently signed up to Mastodon more just to see how the fediverse worked over there.

    Then Reddit - probably the social media I was most invested in just because it was so granular in it’s There’s A Sub For That ability to cater for virtually all interests. But the utter disdain they held for their own volunteers and the contempt they seem to hold virtually everyone in was a bit of a wake up call. I do go back and check on it but I’m finding that I check on it less. Fedi has less content so I am reading all those eBooks I should have been reading instead!

    My son is 7, I’m interested in how things are looking in 5 year’s time when he’s an early teen. He’s already got bored of watching YouTube videos, tiktok isn’t really a thing with us or anyone we know yet… time will tell I suppose. The main thing will be constant reminders that porn isn’t real and cyber security lectures




  • What if they realised they’d made a very stupid decision and if there’d been some more checks and balances that decision could have been avoided?

    The Third Reich, I think we can all agree was totalitarian. Hitler wanted to plunge into a war on two fronts against the USSR drunk on victory against France and expecting to beat Britain. Most of his military advisors weren’t keen. But being a Dictator he could just do it and hey presto war against Stalin. As time went on he got more erratic, made more random millitary decisions overruling his generals and made a pigs ear of things but whatever decision he made on a whim happened straight away anyway.

    That’s just a famous and obvious example of a totalitarian leader rushing into things and getting where he wanted to go faster which didn’t end well for the leader.



  • I mean… Which countries are you aiming these hypothetical nukes at to begin with? Just Afghanistan, or anywhere where Al Queda has supporters?

    I don’t really know where to try and unpick this one but responding to an act of terrorism (as opposed to an act of war) by immediately launching a nuclear strike just for revenge is madness. It would be a crime that would dwarf 9/11 itself thousands of times over.

    And it was probably what Bin Laden was hoping for thinking about it.