I’ve seen some interesting takes on this elsewhere as well. If Twitter is making the legal argument that all the accounts belong to them explicitly, would that make them responsible for all the content they host as well?

They basically get away with all the hate speech and copyright infringement because they are considered a “safe harbor,” not the owners of the content themselves; but if they’re the owner of the content, the safe harbor status might not apply…

While the fact that Twitter is run by a flagrant right-wing fascist who would do anything to help other major right-wing fascists is nothing new, I did think this was an interesting look at the state of social media.

The idea that you can never own your own account (and likely, by extension, anything you post on said account) really drives home the point that the Internet as it is now is basically wholly owned by a handful of corporations.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to reach the point of everyone making their own silly little sites again. It seems like social media is now required to drive views, so the artists who need views for sales will always need to be on social media.

Luckily, decentralized social media is on the rise. Lemmy, while still comparatively small, has a fairly active user base; and while Mastodon has not (and likely will not) ever be mainstream, even Bluesky is technically decentralized as well (I think).

Having said all that, I would very much like to see people making their own sites just for things they enjoy. It’s surprisingly not that hard to do as long as you don’t need it very polished.

That is really the term. Of course, every time a new wave of users join, they always say they’ll never call them “skeets,” but they usually change their mind in time.

In my personal opinion, I actually really appreciate them being called “skeets.” It kind of serves as a reminder that they are not to be taken seriously. I also appreciate that calling them “skeets” will help deter large corporations from joining for some time. (What company wants to be associated with a social media site where the posts are a tongue-in-cheek reference to ejaculate?)

I think (/hope) trolls are going to have a pretty hard time gaining traction on Bluesky. As you’ve mentioned, the block lists are quite effective; but also the lack of algorithm helps too. No matter how many likes/reskeets an offensive skeet gets, I will never see it unless someone I follow specifically reskeets it themselves.

With this in mind, most people seeing the trolls’ posts will likely only be the trolls themselves. Of course they can hop into the comments of a popular skeet; but once they are blocked by the original poster, their skeet becomes removed for everybody.

From what I can tell, the enhanced moderation tools combined with the followed-only feed should make being a troll on Bluesky much harder…

It seems like Twitter may have passed the thermocline and now seems to be hemorrhaging left leaning users.

What I found interesting about this article was how the right leaning users are likely to follow them because they need the left leaning users for engagement. I suppose on some level it’s common sense. Truth Social and Gab never took off for a reason; but it’s still interesting to think about.

That stuck out to me as well. Disney probably made 50k USD in the time it took me to write this comment. This feels more like sending a message than trying to avoid a costly payout.

I’m sure they want to discourage lawsuits, but I’m worried they did this just to try to set a precedent on EULAs being the end-all-be-all.

I just hope they get enough bad publicity from this move to cost them more than the payout would have.

The fact that Disney is asserting that whether a EULA has been read is irrelevant and that a EULA signed five years prior for an unrelated use is still enforceable feels more than insidious.

I hope Disney’s claim gets thrown out because I worry about the precedent this could set for EULAs going forward.

At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times Elon should have been let go. I recall him recently saying that dosing himself with cat tranquilizers was cool and a good business decision actually.

That’s not even getting into turning Twitter into a Nazi bar (and throwing out its extremely valuable branding) or pushing for the cybertruck that cuts its passengers, looks like a dumpster, and corrodes if you look at it funny.

The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.

Honestly, that’s my main hope as well; that all the charging team talent will disperse across the market and help other chargers spread as well. The article mentioned Tesla having 60% of the fast charger market, so hopefully we will see other companies fill the gap.

My concern is that if no companies pick up the ball Tesla just dropped (or more accurately angrily chucked over the fence), that this could set the EV charging network back significantly; which would definitely be a problem for mass adoption of EVs.

Almost all of the Sony Spider-Man movies since 2008 have been of questionable quality. Even the ones I enjoy (Venom, Madame Webb) are only fun in the so-bad-it’s-good kind of way.

I really don’t have very high hopes for Noir because of that, but I am sure I’ll still be entertained by Nic Cage; and I am a little hopeful since Lord and Miller are involved in some capacity (though I’m not sure what the extent of their involvement is).

I agree. I have no idea of the quality of the show, but Nic Cage doing his best Noire impression will be entertaining either way

When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.

Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.

Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.

While Nic Cage being attached is no guarantee of quality, I do find it interesting this is his first TV series. I’m sure he’s been offered TV roles before, so to me this implies he might really believe in the project.

Lord and Miller being involved is a good sign, too; but I’m not sure how much influence a producer really has, to be honest, so it might not mean anything for the show’s quality.

Either way I’ll definitely be watching it since I love Nic Cage and greatly enjoyed him as Spider-Noir in the Spider-Verse movie; but with Sony’s track record, I’m only cautiously optimistic.

I suspect it will be a cameo as well (in the form of a flashback); but since Disney is scrambling on their current MCU lineup, I would say that they could be desperate enough to try anything.

First, I feel like it’s important to note that this is largely unconfirmed speculation that he is coming back because he was at the set. Having said that, I hope he is not coming back.

I know that in comics, only Uncle Ben is truly dead, but I always thought the MCU was a little better about having real stakes. This is why even though AoS is canon (I think), Coulson never reappears in the movies after Avengers.

It’s possible that RDJ could come back in a flashback, which would be OK in my opinion. If he came back in the present, I feel it would cheapen his death in Endgame. I think it would also indicate a death spiral for the MCU (not that that is necessarily a bad thing).

Marvel would basically be admitting they don’t think the MCU can survive without the “old guard.” With this mindset, when the old cast leaves again I think the franchise will flounder even harder than it did after Endgame. I can’t see it long-term surviving reprioritizing the original cast again.

I remember hearing about “Pebble” for the first time about a month ago when it showed up in an article in my “all” feed (https://pawb.social/post/2688668).

Its name before its rebrand was already questionable as I think T2 already has strong associations with the Terminator franchise; and its new name was not any better. “Pebble” is too generic a term to get people to understand the platform’s concept and in the tech space, I think everyone would think of the wearables first.

All this to say I am zero percent surprised they went out of business. I’m only surprised it happened so shortly after their rebrand (though at this point I’m starting to think that must have been some sort of Hail Mary).

As someone who has always been skeptical of “AI,” I definitely hope corporations dial back their enthusiasm on it; but I think its value has never been commercial, but industrial.

“AI” was not designed so consumers could see what it would look like to have Abraham Lincoln fighting a T-Rex without having to pay artists for their time. “AI” was designed so that could happen on a much larger enterprise scale (though it would probably be stock images of technology or happy people using technology instead).

With this in mind, I think “AI” being a money pit won’t dissuade corporations since they want the technology to be effective for themselves, they just want consumers to offset costs.

Oh, exactly. I’ve hit a point where I could buy nice clothes on occasion if I had a reason too, but with expensive clothes being just as quality errant as low end brands, I find myself having very little reason to upgrade my wardrobe.

If I could find a reliably quality brand, I’d certainly be more inclined to start changing out my closet.

As it stands right now: I can basically throw out any polyester clothes because I never wear them, even if I like the pattern.

I think a lot of people have noticed clothing quality going down for a while, especially if shopping fast fashion brands; but I thought it was especially interesting how the decline in quality permeated through the high end brands as well.

When I saw the Ben Schwartz photo referenced in the article, I had assumed it looked worse since it was probably not as nice a brand as Billy Crystal’s sweater. I was surprised to see it was likely a 400USD sweater that looked like that.

As the article notes at the end, it is still possible to find fully natural clothes, but I wish they were easier to locate.

A couple of key highlights:

The proposal is a gambit by Meta to navigate European Union rules that threaten to restrict its ability to show users personalized ads without first seeking user consent—jeopardizing its main source of revenue.

It would give users the choice between continuing to access Instagram and Facebook free with personalized ads, or paying for versions of the services without any ads, people familiar with the proposal said.

Under the plan, Meta has told regulators it would charge users roughly €10 a month, equivalent to about $10.50, on desktop on a Facebook or Instagram account, and roughly €6 for each additional linked account, the people said. On mobile devices the price would jump to roughly €13 a month because Meta would factor in commissions charged by Apple’s and Google’s app stores on in-app payments.

Privacy-conscious users in the U.S. shouldn’t expect to be offered the option to pay for ad-free Instagram or Facebook soon. Meta’s proposals have been pitched specifically as a way to navigate demands by EU regulators to seek consent before crunching user data to select highly personalized ads.

It isn’t clear if regulators in Ireland or Brussels will deem the new plan compliant with EU laws, or whether they will insist Meta offer cheaper or even free versions with ads that aren’t personalized based on a user’s digital activity.

This feels like Meta is just attempting to play at Malicious Compliance. There’s no way they make that much off each user per month, this feels like they are intentionally making it cost-prohibitive to have the ad-free version just so they can say they are meeting EU regulations. I certainly cannot see many users shelling out ~€17 a month for Instagram and Facebook.

As noted, though, this may not be enough to pass the EU regulations.