Sorry, I kinda got lost in the sauce on my original comment, lol. My issue isn’t so much with the data collection, itself. My problem is that their FAQs say things that appear to be outright lies. Not even just embellishing the truth or something, but complete falsehoods.

I don’t care so much that they collect a bit of data. But if they’re wiling to lie to a potential user about their data collection, I can’t help but wonder what else they might be willing to be dishonest about. I already have doubts about their crypto claim in the FAQ based on their founder’s history with NFTs, so I worry that this might also be something they’re not being truthful about.

Oh for sure, I don’t doubt that. The issue that I take is that their FAQ - which I imagine is rarely actually read by users, but is definitely read more often than the ToS - is directly contradicted by their ToS. While they say they only collect one data point in the FAQ, the ToS outlines several other data points they collect. While they say they don’t share your collected data with third parties, the ToS states that they may share your collected data with third parties for advertising purposes. The FAQ denies being connected to crypto schemes, despite their founder (Tiffany Zhong) and parent company being heavily involved in crypto.

While these are all standard practices for just about every web platform, it’s the lies in the FAQs that should be concerning to users. If they would have just said exactly what they do with your data or what their background is in, or even just not included it in the FAQs at all, I wouldn’t have any problem with it. But they’re willing to openly lie to their users, and I don’t think they should be trusted.

Yeah, I thought about that halfway through looking through their ToS. I wish I was smart enough to figure out how to package this into a message Gen Z can actually understand and care about.

I mean, it feels kinda obvious. If there’s any company in this space that would never need to use generative AI, it’s Nintendo. They already employ some of the most talented art teams in the industry, they’re not exactly struggling to produce art or assets.

If this was from a developer who maybe hasn’t been a gaming monolith for the last 30+ years, that’d be different. This is like if Bill Gates says he promises not to open his 401k early; like, okay cool, I don’t think that was ever in doubt in the last 30 years, Bill, but thanks for letting us know.

No, it doesn’t. With exception to extreme outlier situations (where generally the youngest such an operation can be done is at 15), gender assignment surgeries are not being done on minors.

but he’s so so much better than trump.

The thing is, New Jersey seems to disagree. That’s why we need a stronger candidate than Biden. I know that realistically, he’s probably the safest candidate against Trump, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be happy about it.

Well, the bears do have a right to be armed, after all.

That’s not really what astroturfing is. Astroturfing refers to groups pretending to be a small startup, but are actually organized by and working toward the interests of a larger entity.

For instance, a group of activists may petition their local government to request new laws that restrict how corporations can exploit local water sources, under the guise of environmental protection concerns. But it turns out that activist group is actually owned by Nestle, who are trying to carve out laws that would drive out their competition and do little for the environment.

“Fake grassroots” = astroturf.

It can also be context-specific. Sometimes the L can stand for “Lunch”, for videos you shouldn’t watch while eating or might otherwise trigger a gag reflex (gore, pimple popping, anything with creepy crawlies, etc).

It’s okay, it’ll make sense once you sober up. :)

From noplace’s FAQs: *

do you collect my data?

we use your phone number as a way for you to sign up and log into the app. that’s the only thing about you we collect.

we don’t share your number or anything else about you with third parties like some other apps do. we want you to be able to securely log in and chat with ur friends, that’s it.

Emphasis mine. Now their privacy policy: *

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

Phone number Usage Data Usage Data Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service. Usage Data may include information such as Your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device.

So, it looks like they’re starting off with lies right at the top, like every other tech startup.

EDIT: To also address the “we don’t share your number or anything else about you with third parties” part, the privacy policy also outlines exactly how they will share your data with third parties:

We may share Your personal information in the following situations: […] With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.

Go fuck yourselves, noplace.

EDIT: Another issue I just found with their FAQs:

is this a crypto thing?

wut? no.

I thought it was weird that crypto would be a frequently-asked question for what appears to otherwise be a pretty generic-looking social network. Then I found that noplace’s parent company, Islands XYZ, was originally launched to be an NFT platform of some sort, financially backed by our old friend Alexis Ohanian.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/11/30/web3-startup-islands-creators-nft-communities-launch/

So they’re totally not a crypto thing. Definitely not crypto. 100% something other than crypto.

Guys, I swear they’re not a crypto thing.

I’m going the 100% free-to-play route and I’m actually enjoying this game so far. I’ve tried to get into some other Hoyoverse games, but had a hard time because of how cheesy a lot of the writing was, and just not being that into the general gameplay loops for those games, so I wasn’t going into this with very high hopes. But the writing is significantly better this time around, and the gameplay is a pretty good balance of being engaging enough to be fun while not being a total grind.

Are you suggesting that there’s an epidemic of undiagnosed MSP and that it’s the cause of trans children existing? Because if so, you’re probably gonna need to venture past Page 1 of your Google searches to break that one down for us.

If they want a sex change, just let them do it when they become an adult

That’s already how it works. You’re angry at a thing that doesn’t exist and that nobody is suggesting.

The thing is, this story you mention isn’t a situation of trans health care; this is a situation of actual child abuse. The parents literally forced a gender identity onto their child who seems to have otherwise been cisgender. It’s not all that different from what conservative parents will often do with their actual trans children.

If anything, this story shows the harms that come by denying gender-affirming care to children. That child was not a girl, and denying him of his identity caused irreparable damage. All because the parents were too scared to tell their child that the doctor fucked up the circumcision.

Defederating/blocking doesn’t stop Meta from datamining you.

I put about 6 hours into it, and it largely feels pretty shallow. I don’t know if the gear you get later in the game significantly changes the gameplay too much, but the basic combat loop is pretty simplistic. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of variety in your abilities, as each character you can play as seems pretty locked-down. Right now it feels like 99% of the player base is using a single character, Bunny, so you and all your teammates are basically just doing the exact same things all the time.

The PS5 version has some pretty bad performance issues. Certain areas just drop the game down to 30 FPS as soon as you cross an invisible boundary. Some player/enemy animations start rendering at lower framerates when there’s a lot of things on the screen. The “fidelity” mode is basically unplayable, and enabling ray tracing is literally unplayable; I’m not sure why those options are even available on the PS5 version in the first place, to be honest.

The plot is kinda weak and generic. Half the time I spent playing was listening to characters exposition-dump on me, and I still have no idea what’s supposed to be going on or why I’m doing what I’m doing. The game does little to compel you, as a player, to actually care about the plot.

The monetization doesn’t seem too out of control. I’ve not looked too deeply through the shop, but it looks like it’s mostly cosmetics. I didn’t see anything that screams “pay to win”, and at no point did the game purposely direct my attention to the shop; I had to find it on my own, which is actually great because I hate when games stop you to force you to look through the shop as part of the tutorial.

If the gameplay gets more engaging or exciting in the endgame, that’d be great, but so far it really doesn’t look like it. I want to like it, so I’m probably gonna keep playing throughout the week and see how it goes as I progress further. But right now, I’m at least just glad it’s free.

I kinda want to start a fake movement to rename hurricanes as “themicanes”, just to piss off dipshit goobers like this.

SCOTUS ruled that the president has immunity for many of his presidential actions and none for personal actions such as going on a murder streak

Right, that’s literally the point. All a malfeasant president would need to do is declare that assassinating political rivals is an official presidential action. If the president argues that it’s an official act of their office and not of their own personhood, there’s little room to hold them accountable for it.

It may seem like an absolutely ridiculous argument, and that’s because it is. What constitutes an “official” presidential action was left intentionally un-defined by the court, so that such ridiculous arguments could be treated as legitimate if the immunity is challenged.

Kuhbander’s mom, Jane, posted on social media days after her son was last seen. She claimed that Kuhbander was ‘coerced’ by Anderson and that she was a danger to herself. She also claimed that Kuhbander did not go with her willingly.

Family had said the two were romantically involved but had broken up before they went missing.

For as few details as this article has, they certainly do let you paint a pretty disturbing picture of what happened.