Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[DavidCroquet]

Making mountains out of molehills has been that forums MO since it started. Witch hunts, going nuts for no reason, airing too much personal info, etc.

And I'm just here waiting for remasters of some Zelda games, the FF13 trilogy, Xenoblade Chronicles X, etc.

FF13 and its sequels are shit

Reported to the mods for harm.

[AldusMoneyPenny]

Let’s just say that I would gladly toe that line

[Lonewulfeus]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/mlb-postseason-2024-ot.997683/page-29#post-129906915

"Dominant powerhouse steamrolled by a buncha losers defying god," definitely feels like the arc the writers have been building to.

That's literally the story of every Mets team that has ever won anything

This motherfucker is wrong about literally everything.  The 1986 Mets won 108 games, they were a powerhouse.

[Snoopy]

Some articles on noodlesoups stand 

https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2024-10-08/isu-student-protestors-receive-probation-for-pro-palestinian-sit-in

https://pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-courts/illinois-state-university-students-sentenced-for-protest-over-gaza-israel-war/article_7c4d0ae8-84fa-11ef-8c01-c312d2305738.html

Plaintiffs said the essay amounted to compelled speech violating their First and Fifth Amendment constitutional rights. The case was later moved to federal court, where a judge denied the plaintiff's restraining order petition in late August.

The status of that civil lawsuit was unclear as of Tuesday.

Sheryl Weikal of McHenry, the attorney who represented the students in the criminal case and is their ongoing representation in the civil case, did not respond to requests for comment Monday and Tuesday.

 

Ah, now it makes sense. Poor Noodle was peer pressured into letting that disastrous freak represent him in court.

[kaleidoscopium]

Some articles on noodlesoups stand 

https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2024-10-08/isu-student-protestors-receive-probation-for-pro-palestinian-sit-in

https://pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-courts/illinois-state-university-students-sentenced-for-protest-over-gaza-israel-war/article_7c4d0ae8-84fa-11ef-8c01-c312d2305738.html

Plaintiffs said the essay amounted to compelled speech violating their First and Fifth Amendment constitutional rights. The case was later moved to federal court, where a judge denied the plaintiff's restraining order petition in late August.

The status of that civil lawsuit was unclear as of Tuesday.

Sheryl Weikal of McHenry, the attorney who represented the students in the criminal case and is their ongoing representation in the civil case, did not respond to requests for comment Monday and Tuesday.

 

Ah, now it makes sense. Poor Noodle was peer pressured into letting that disastrous freak represent him in court.

I can find the post later but he was BRAGGING about how they had gotten a top notch lawyer one of the best in the country

edit:

So yeah, that was that. My friends and I are meeting with our lawyer later today to discuss the next best course of action. Even though we're completely banned from campus (one of my friends who lived in the dorms has been rendered homeless), the encampment is still going strong. We'll continue to pressure the university to meet our demands—even if it means it'll spill well into the next school year.

EDIT: Jesus Christ. My lawyer just mentioned to us that the prosecutor wanted to charge me and a friend with a felony. For me in particular, I think we all know why.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/protests-at-columbia-university-continue-as-groups-on-both-sides-of-the-aisle-call-for-action-to-be-taken-university-shifts-to-hybrid-classes.851787/page-30#post-122533443

he edited the post since then but probably an archive way back in this forum

[kaleidoscopium]

Bluesky really appeals to me and others who loved the quieter old school Twitter experience, but I think there are a lot of people who crave the chaos and infighting. I don't get it myself, but one of the first things I noticed when more people started getting on Bsky was a sharp uptake of people leaping into folks' mentions trying to start fights and shit.

People got trained to be that way by Twitter. You see it here too. You can really tell who spends tons of time on Twitter.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/brazil-top-judge-orders-suspension-of-elon-musks-twitter.968790/page-18#post-129907635

b dumbs really hates his own forum

[Potato]

I'm confused at exactly what we mean by "engagement bait"…

Can someone post an example?

(Also, loving my Threads feed so far)

What's your favorite movie twist?
Or
Some other really dumb question accompanied with a picture with an obvious solution to someone's problem.

So…like…a weekend era thread?

https://www.resetera.com/threads/metas-competitor-to-%F0%9D%95%8F-called-threads-update-fediverse-integration-has-begun.737511/page-171#post-129861720

Imagine celebrating a social media company owned by Facebook/Zuckerberg simply because they think Musk is the devil...

Do they not understand the irony?

[BananaBlast]

I see valkaria has deleted their account because, they seem to have great shame of having an IconEra and an account on the bire. There's nothing to be ashamed of!

Also I understand that the EchosofCyborg "date a goddess" might be their idea of a joke thread, but the fact they still virtue signal and try to mix in legitimate advice in dating cis women makes me think it's still an unhinged creepy transbian who has trouble seeing through reality.

[BananaBlast]

Unless it's someone like Bailey Jay, I wouldn't either.

Ew, no thanks.

Now sure, she's pretty and passes extremely well, but she's still biologically male, probably still has a dick, and I'm heterosexual, so hard pass.

[kaleidoscopium]

cute face but still a man ass and man hips, probably a man shlong too. no thanks

[BananaBlast]

They're getting butthurt about this in the chuds megathread

I really, really hate to say this, but they're probably right for tearing that stupid take apart. Ugh.

Dumb crazy bitch is complaining that Master Chief's armor is "woke" when it's literally just the classic Halo 1 design. It's the whole "they shrunk his shoulders" meme all over again.

[Uncle]

master chef is healthy at any size 

[Alpacx]

Gods mistress aka EchoesoftheFetish's alt

Pfft peasants.

Again, ruining everything for normal trans women with this horseshit facade. Every time they call someone an incel they're projecting or whatever the terminology is.

There are no normal trans woman. The old-school HSTSes are as crazy as the AGPs era caters too, just in a different way.


Chud Palate Cleanser:

[Chumbawumbafan69]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/do-you-care-or-get-bothered-by-spelling-and-grammar-on-the-internet.1003698/post-129888195

crienne
They/Them

I'm a professional technical writer and have been for 13 years. Typos and "incorrect" grammar don't bother me in the least outside of a professional environment. I'm more annoyed by the people that try to correct others and I'm of the opinion that the constant need to correct grammar on the internet promotes an Anglo-centric, outdated, and classist view of language and how it's used.

Correct grammar and spelling are for upper class whites only. Please don't steal my people's culture.

This is a troll account, do not try to convince me otherwise.

[remy]

Unless it's someone like Bailey Jay, I wouldn't either.

Ew, no thanks.

Now sure, she's pretty and passes extremely well, but she's still biologically male, probably still has a dick, and I'm heterosexual, so hard pass.

[BananaBlast]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/do-you-care-or-get-bothered-by-spelling-and-grammar-on-the-internet.1003698/post-129888195

crienne
They/Them

I'm a professional technical writer and have been for 13 years. Typos and "incorrect" grammar don't bother me in the least outside of a professional environment. I'm more annoyed by the people that try to correct others and I'm of the opinion that the constant need to correct grammar on the internet promotes an Anglo-centric, outdated, and classist view of language and how it's used.

Correct grammar and spelling are for upper class whites only. Please don't steal my people's culture.

This is a troll account, do not try to convince me otherwise.

Buddy's so waist deep in his virtue signaling insanity, he doesn't even realize he just said the better your grammar is, the more of a rich white person you come across as 

I bet he/they probably does have a problem with people using bad grammar, since he's an eltist snob who complains about sexy big boobs, but him learning that "grammar is racist" from whatever toxic think bubble he learned that from is what caused him to do a 360.

[BIONIC]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Going to be walking on eggshells here slightly but I think this is an issue worth bringing up. It's something that has bothered me multiple times and I know it's something other people have brought up in the past as well.

I think mods need to be better at communicating the reasons for a ban, especially when the banned person in question is asking for it to be explained to them. I want to note that I think there's a big difference between "why was i banned plz unban" and "Could you explain what you meant by this? I don't really understand what I did wrong here." but both are treated exactly the same and given the same dismissive non-responses.

So I do kind of have to talk about my experience to talk about this but I need to make my intentions in doing so clear.
I am not relitigating the one week ban I just had. I accept that ban, I am not trying to argue against the ban itself. I know that is against the rules of this thread and from my perspective I am not breaking those rules because what I want to talk about is specifically the issue regarding the responses given through the Ticket system. To emphasize this point, I am not including any details about the ban in question, and thus will not post what my ticket was in full (because it did have me explaining my perspective on the situation), but I will quote something I said in it that should hopefully make clear to anyone reading this post what the intention of the ticket was.

First of all, it wasn't sent under the "Ban Appeal" option, because I was not trying to appeal the ban, it was sent under the "Moderation Inquiry" option.
And here's some of what I said in it:
"I want to try and understand where this ban is coming from. I recognize it's only week and I'm not trying to argue or start any trouble, I am just legitimately baffled. In what way was I concern trolling?" "what could I have done in this situation"

Now, to make sure I'm not misrepresenting things, the full ticket was three paragraphs, but for the sake of not getting into specifics of the ban, I present the above as my example that I was, from my perspective rather clearly, trying to get further clarification and understanding about why I was banned because I truly honestly did not understand it. I was not trying to appeal the ban. I wrote this Ticket fully ready to accept whatever further explanation I got.

This is the response, four days later:


I was really confused by this. I didn't say anything about the ban being on my record. I was asking for more information.
I thought about sending another ticket but I knew from past experience it would just be Rejected. So I sat on this for the remainder of my ban and went back and forth on if it would be worth making a post in this thread. Ultimately I decided it was, not for me specifically, I'm no longer asking about this particular ban, I am bringing this up because I think it's a symptom of a larger problem.

First of all, let's all admit that it really comes across like whoever responded didn't really read what my ticket said. They probably skimmed it, saw me talking about the ban, and then just wrote that it was staying on the assumption I was trying to appeal the ban (even thought it wasn't in that category...). But also the wording here is just so detached, so dismissive. The only reason I don't think this is an automated response is because it took four days to get. If I'm wrong about this and my Ticket was read in full, then the read was painted with an assumption and ignored both what I was saying within it and what category it was sent under.

So here's what I started thinking about during the rest of my ban.
What is the point of a short ban on ResetEra?

Like, the point of a Permanent Ban is obvious, the staff have decided that you are no longer welcome on this forum. Pretty clear cut there. So what about the short ones? No other forum I have been on does them. But they're a slap on the wrist, right? A "go sit in the corner and think about what you did". Okay, I've made peace with that. It still feels pretty bad when it happens but that's how Era rolls. Well, how can someone think about what they did if they don't understand it? Surely the point of a ban like this requires the banned user to be able to reflect. I honestly wonder what percentage of bans have happened where the person never really understood why they were banned and just let it go.

Part of the problem is also the vibe that the mods always assume the absolute worst intentions possible from every user. Like, people complain about this all the time too. And from my perspective you can see it in the dismissive response I got. But I also imagine that a lot of mods will scoff at the idea that we deserve further explanations at all, they might think that everyone is just looking to argue and undermine them or whatever. But I really don't think that's the case and I think the culture here would be a lot healthier if there were better channels of communication between these two "sides".

So here's where my thoughts are at. The short single sentence ban messages aren't really enough. I think people deserve a little bit more about why they've been banned. I'm not saying every single one week ban needs to be sent a personal five paragraph essay on what they did wrong or anything. But a little more information is probably due and if people actively ask for a better explanation, that should be provided to them. Even if every other person in the thread understands why they were banned, if the banned person themselves doesn't then the ban doesn't really have any purpose beyond people who didn't like their post feeling satisfied they got someone in trouble with the teachers. And maybe the people seeking further information won't accept the answer given but I think there at least needs to be a way to get that answer. I think the Ticket system should be a reliable method that people feel comfortable and safe to use. It shouldn't feel like poking a sleeping bear, provided the Ticket isn't obviously abusive towards the staff reading it.

I really hope my intention has come across here. I hope this doesn't just sound like me whining about my ban because that's really not what I'm trying to do here. And while I do think the response to my ticket was kind of insulting, I'm not even complaining about that. I just think that communication between mods and users has always been at the root of most of the issues raised in this thread and I think this is one department where there needs to be some improvement. Whenever there's a big blowup here about someone being banned the mods say the banned person can send a ticket if they want to talk about it. Well that's clearly not true. This has happened to me multiple times and I know I've seen others complain about it too. There is no avenue of discussion within the ticket system. You are dismissed and the ticket closed without response. There has to be a better way.

Well, whatever happens, I thank anyone who took the time to read this post. I've been thinking about it a lot the past few days.

Known mod cock gobbler melts down when hit with the hammer themselves. Many such cases

I agree extremely much with this.

I have gotten banned at times where a post of mine was interpreted in such a way I wasn't even able to comprehend. I sincerely asked for an explanation, only to not commit the same error twice, and gotten the same "After reviewing your ban, we have decided it should remain in your record".

And I'm like "wtf okay, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you to explain it to me in a way it's not just a generic one line message on top of my banned post"

Exact same thing happened to me. I asked for a clarification about a warning I received. I wasn't sure which part of my post was moderable. The only response was "the warning will stay on record". Ok...? That ain't what I asked

Like you, I also filed it under Moderation Inquiry and not Appeals. I won't pretend I'd say no to having it lifted if it was misread, but the core of my ticket was to ask for clarification.

Might as well nuke the entire "Moderation Inquiry" ticket category, because it's clearly not helping much.

Not surprised so many got the exact same response over the exact same issue but I'm glad you're all putting yourselves out there to confirm what I already suspected. This is a frequent occurrence and it needs to change. I'm not trying to "come at" the staff here or anything but surely they have to understand how frustrating it must be to be in the position where you're trying to understand what lesson you should even be learning and instead they clearly didn't even bother to read your ticket or engage with you with even a single ounce of good faith. Whatever it is about the ticket system and how it's being handled that is leading to this happening, I think it's something that should be addressed.

[Boredfrom]

Morrigan pretending she doesn’t understand how the mods operate. 

[El Derpo]

Morrigan pretending she doesn’t understand how the mods operate. 

Easily explainable by dismissing concerns

[BananaBlast]

Morrigan pretending she doesn’t understand how the mods operate. 

It's like someone complaining about abysmal customer service..... when that same person worked the same exact job, giving customers all kinds of shit and being A-OK with the broken ticket system they're complaining about now 

[Taco Bell Tower]

I seriously can't get over Morricunt not understanding how it works when she freakin gave people bans like Oprah giving things away.  You get a ban, you get a ban, you all get a ban!

[benji]

I hope you guys have her posts saved, and email them to her local authorities so they can share them with the FBI. Hopefully just to her a one week reprimand.

The FBI are not forum jannies.

Noodlesoup doesn’t actually live there and only was there for college, does he have to move back for probation or will he be given some leniency to return to Chicago for his probation?

It's a state charge and borderline meaningless, he probably won't even have to check in for it. They wanted him to plea to one of them the entire time, you can probably find tons of my posts on here where I say this, because it was just a warning so he won't do anything again since then he'll face a probation violation. 

I like to think of these things in a transactional economic nature

if given the choice, would you rather sit angrily in an office for an evening, or get a PS5? they cost about the same, it is up to you

This is exactly the kind of horrific mentality capitalism puts us in instead of allowing us to all do what's right.

crienne

This is all made worse by the fact that since I started dealing with my trauma and identity issues and whatnot since about 32 I've wanted, more than ever, to express myself with my hair (whether it's long or colored or pixie cut or whatever) but I can't and I actually have reversed my stance of, "Oh, I'm fine with this" that I had in my mid-late 20s. Baldness sucks, especially when your non-binary and want to explore androgyny or femme styles but can't because you're fucking bald and have a beard and that automatically clocks you as "male" regardless of what you're wearing or how you act.

Person who wants to "express" and "explore" their "androgyny and femme" but can only think of hair and clothing as ways to do this. And do so in incredibly trite ways that are tied to what women attract them. Many such cases.

Agreed, but at least if you can look like that. Then fair play you've done well, it's just pathetic when you see like Melody types who tries to pass off as women.

Really cool how you all keep quote posting that pic, forcing me to pop boner after boner over essentially a guy's ass like I'm some kind of homogay.  Got me literally stroking my thang from deep in the endzone like I'm some queer playing touch-football, and the football is another man's ass.  You're all gay for this one.

Don't look for any recent pictures now that Bailey Jay has aged out of their teens. There's a reason all the trans fetishes are about trying to freeze life permanently in that age. 

[D3RANG3D]

I'd still touch her tooter but yeah she got bogged.

[benji]

Hey, no kink-shaming here. This isn't ResetERA.com. I just think people should be informed of relevant information. (Also unlike ResetERA.com.)

[Chudder Barbarity]

what the fuck is wrong with you top of the page faggots lately? trann⁣ys, ironing boards, and tatted up skanks? are you trying to make people throw up? Where's the wholesome WLW content?

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/israel-palestine-the-ongoing-israeli-genocide-in-gaza-icj-orders-halt-to-israeli-offensive-on-rafah-see-staff-posts-for-posting-guidelines.772478/page-409#post-129871278

According to the Guardian:

If the population of Gaza was 2 million, and if my maths is right (it might not be), then that would be at least ~7% of the population has been killed or injured. And I imagine that's a low estimate. Beyond belief.

The count is likely in the 100's of thousands already. Israel might actually wipe out the entirety of Gaza's population.

I cant believe its been one year of this atrocity with no sign of stopping.

Like school shootings, zionists never think its a good time for people to speak out against their apartheid.

It's also really fucked up because they pretend to actually give a shit about the hostages but really support endless conflict and death and destruction.

Hostages have been dangled around for whatever political points they can get out of them, and once they fulfilled that purpose, they've been left to die.

After a year of complicity and water carrying for imperialist agendas we are seeing the part of the US media cycle where after the damage is baked in, momentum irreversible, and consequences too profound to ignore, we suddenly see the NYtimes and others reflecting back with slightly stronger judgement and active voice on the things that were reported passively and without sufficient pushback despite being blatantly evident contemporaneously as they originally occurred

It's all part of the cycle we saw with the War on Terror and then Iraq.

From now and going forward as the US media slowly begins pointing fingers in the coming months for "how did this ever happen" *surprised pickachu face*(while also advancing the notion that welp, cant undue the past now so lets start endlessly litigating the current unjust status quo still pushing toward escalation, genocide, and ethnic cleansing), they and others will point to a handful of objectively good journalistic pieces dotted along the journey and cherry pick out the stray de-prioritized voice they published as evidence of perfectly good and objective reporting, then conclude any problem doesn't lie with us outside the occasional bad source that just happens during emergent crisis events.

Kamala's sharing the stage with a Cheney and bragging about republican support and having them in her cabinet while Fox News airs a segment about protecting Palestinian journalists.

Im so fucking confused.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/israel-intensifies-military-operations-in-lebanon-up-2024-10-01-ground-invasion-underway.989493/page-36#post-129916875

Watching the US doing Israel's bid is like realizing Russia's military strength was nothing be a facade.

How long until they stop teasing and actually join the fray? Especially with the Lebanon comment earlier, Biden is doing his best to make Bibi and John Boltons dreams come true.

Is it possible that this was always the goal of the US and they are essentially just playing dumb a little and using Israel as a proxy?

I can't know what others believe in their heart of heart but I strongly suspect that the Americans broadly hoped that things were going to remain approximately stable (especially in an election year). I don't think anybody there has love of Iran but I do think they have a vested interest in not rocking the boat too hard.

This is already in itself supporting of oppression - "keeping the region stable" even when America wasn't invading countries has always meant maintaining an apartheid state in Israel and tacitly allowing continued land theft and colonisation. But it also meant maintaining close ties, supporting and arming other people like the Saudi monarchy who aren't exactly paragons of human rights. For decades they've had their diplomatic work cut out for them trying to keep the big players happy to avoid a repeat or 1973 or 1979.

I don't have reason to doubt reports that Biden and others are angry at Netanyahu on a personal level, and called him a liar and an evil man and all that. But at the end of the day they stood behind him - over and over. My belief is that this is because of a mixture of basically three things - one is anti-Arab racism, one is genuine fervour for the state of Israel, and one is a cynical (and quite possibly mistaken) belief that their current path is the one that loses them the least support domestically.

Not likely. October 6 2023 Brett Mcgurk was meeting with Saudi Diplomats working on a plan that would normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in exchange for a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia was already looking into things like how to fix utilities like the electrical grid in Palestine.

When Biden warned Israel not to make the same mistakes the US did after 9/11 I believe he was being genuine and knew that just like the US was with 9/11, Israel was being baited into a response that would ultimately be self-defeating. This doesn't excuse his inaction after but I don't think he was putting on elaborate theater at the time either.

I totally disagree but it ultimately doesn't matter does it? Whether it's a facade or genuine desire, Biden, Blinken, Amos, Mcgurk and the rest of their foreign policy ghouls should be sentenced at the Hague along with the majority of the Israeli government. 0 chance of that happening but America (and by extension Israel) have
always been above the law.

[benji]

Thread of cops wanting things to be illegal for adults to protect the children, everyone concerned that society doesn't have enough cops watching everything and throwing people in prison for it:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/more-than-a-dozen-states-sue-tiktok-alleging-it-harms-kids-and-is-designed-to-addict-them.1003971/

I believe in freedoms to do what you want, but admit I'm stumped about horrid shit like filters genuinely affecting how people feel about themselves or doing dumb-ass tik-tok challenges (and this could go for a lot of socials).

Indeed, regulation is wanting in a lot of these spaces; the free rein to do and post literally whatever the fuck (no matter how heinous) is so weird.

Good. These social media companies should be treated the same way tobacco companies were

Tiktok for under 18s needs to be math lessons and that's it, tbh.

i think over the last five years or so ive really turned the corner on social media regarding regulation. i like using them, but it would be great if governments could sensibly take the hammer to them because what they allow has grown out of control

Right?
Like on the one hand people deserve the right to do whatever they want...but like...there's little doubt that addictions thrive on that principle and make it an easy excuse to continue on.

We are straight up in the "totally normal to smoke on a plane phase" of this whole mess

I want tech platforms to be held accountable. I'm unsure how strong this lawsuit will be to hold TikTok accountable, or in what timeframe it will be able to hold them accountable. My prescription is the same as what I've said in prior threads on TikTok. The organizations that want politicians to do things other than suing social media companies have to insert themselves directly into the legislative process and become an ALEC but for laws that actually help people. Organizations working directly in conjunction with lawmakers to get laws passed targeting data brokers, targeting the addictive pattern-creating mechanics and systems like autoplay video and infinite scroll that exist across all platforms, not just TikTok.

Honestly THIS is the kind of thing to go after social media companies for.

Still waiting on the declassification of the info that the federal TikTok legislation sailed through on, senators. Other than xenophobia and protecting American social media companies, anyway.

It's pretty bad for people older than 18 too though

Ok, but other social media should be included too.

Instagram is specially toxic for girls.

Youtube straight out radicalizes teenage boys.

It's really rough. My kid is 24 and he's been taken in by a lot of the Rogan bro-sphere toxic masculinity stuff. I blame his work friends who basically live on it. He's still the person I raised but every now and then he drops an opinion or conspiracy claim that forces me to stop and debunk it for him.

Now sue twitter for adults.

Man, am I glad to have grown up in the '90s. I cant imagine the peer pressure and stress I would endure as a kid or teen with social media. And I feel for the parents having to navigate thei children through this minefield.

Sometimes I think the solution to social media is to simply outlaw smart device usage for kids under 18 besides laptops and desktops.

Bring back the barrier to entry to the internet instead of folks being hooked up 24/7.

It's wreaking havoc of the younger generations.

We need to treat these social media platforms the way the tobacco companies were treated decades ago but the modern government doesn't have the stomach for it. They are a net negative for society and deeply dangerous and damaging to children.

Spoiler: The Albatross demanding an end to the internet at essay length (click to show)(click to hide)

These states are right.

I am so tired of the kneejerk defenses of TikTok, it's indefensible, and the "Hey look over there!" misdirection of "waaah, but what about Facebook?!?" I still actively use TikTok, I use the app every day, I don't like it as much as I used to, it's gotten significantly worse for me over the last 2-3 years. On the flipside, I've been boycotting Facebook-owned properties for almost a decade now and so I don't want to hear that criticism of TikTok is some defense of Facebook. It's not, and the "wow I wonder how much money Facebook paid [Democrat X] to go after TIkTok" is lazy and false. I fucking hate Facebook, I have hated Facebook for a long time and it's the primary platform that I criticize. I probably don't do it as much anymore because criticism of Facebook is so conventional in my political circles, it's like... well duh, but I don't come to Facebook's defense when states or the Feds file lawsuits against them.

All social media platforms have problems, most share similar problems, emphasizing engagement over everything else eventually turns the platforms into misinformation hubs, conspiracy hubs, racist/mysoginistic/anti-semitic headquarters, and also with Instagram and TikTok there are major issues with adolescent health. Most social media platforms also have problems that are uniquely bad to one but not as bad on the others in some way.

A problem that TikTok has that even Twitter and Facebook don't have as bad is that it's a captive platform. FB and Twitter are not captive platforms, linking to things outside of FB and Twitter is one of the fundamental features of the platforms. That doens't mean that audiences can't opt into being captive, of course they can, but by design because they were built 15+ years ago, they just aren't as captive platforms as TikTok is. Instagram is more of a captive platform than FB/Twitter, less than TikTok. A major problem with disinformation/propaganda on TikTok is that there is no way to combat disinformation that doesn't rely on the algorithm promoting your content, which it doesn't if it doesn't engage. Twitter and FB don't have this problem in the same way. If someone posts something false on Twitter, influential people can reasonable object to it and provide more information, usually a link or a community note. When someone posts that hurricanes are caused by liberal Jews and they're meant to hurt Donald Trump's election chances, on TikTok, there is no way to combat that misinformation without making your own video and then hoping that the algorithm will pick that up and display it to the people who saw the misinformation -- which it won't, because people who believe things like that don't engage with truth, so they'll just never, ever see it. Even Twitter, owned by right wing fanatic Elon Musk, is better about this. Within minutes of Margery Taylor Greene posting her insane conspiracies about "them" controlling the weather, influential accounts dogpiled the comments with links and replies, and Community Notes picked it up and combatted the obvious lies. This feature doesn't exist on TikTok and it never will, and because replies are personalized by the algorithm, no two people are exposed to the same replies on a video, you see the replies that the algorithm thinks you'll most engage with. It's a captive platform that is controlled by the recommendation algorithms much more than any other platform.

People who think that TikTok is left wing or more liberal or whatever, are just wrong. "But I see videos of Gaza more on TikTok than I do on Facebook or Twitter," yes, because you -- personally -- engage with Gaza content, and the FB and Twitter algorithms are just ... like ... childs play compared to the recommendation algorithms of TikTok, they're like 5+ years behind in terms of engagement by recommendation. If you engage with racist or anti-semitic content on TikTok, then your feed will be highly tuned to deal you "mongoloid race theory" or "poisoning the blood," and so on. Massive conspiracies thrive on TikTok as well as they do on Facebook or Twitter, Jews controlling the weather, Jews controlling the banks, Jews controlling hollywood, blacks being more violent than whites, COVID vaccine conspiracies, Jewish liberal weather conspiracies ... the shit that thrives on TikTok is as strong as any other platform, and I think TIkTok might be uniquely worse than Twitter and FB because that content thrives, and there's no built in way to check it, fact check it, counter it, or anything else. The built in reporting system is as bad as any network I've ever used.

Another flaw with the algorithm that drives me crazy on a personal level is that reporting content shows you more of that content, because I think it counts as a positive engagement. Like, you see something racist or anti-semitic, like a video that all black people are inferior to whites and that there needs to be a great culling. You long press choose "report video," report it for hate and harrassment. 2 weeks later you'll get a notification that the video doesn't meet the community standards for hate and harrassment, and within those two weeks, youi'll get more content about that, because it seemingly counts any engagement as positive engagement ... and long pressing -> report or long pressing -> show less, is seemingly a positive engagement. On the mundane, harmless side of this, EVERY fucking "Me and my boyfriend as Pixar couple" and "Pixar-ify my dog" I long press choose "show me less" or "dislike" or whatever the feature to tune your algorithm is, and without fail I must be shown 25 of those videos a day.... Marking the video type to not see it shows you more of it. It seems fucking crazy to me.

And on the personal side, not like ... regulation side, but my personal use of tiktok, meanwhile I don't get any of the stuff that I really like. The lady who talks about spooky lakes. The nerdy guy who talks about weird facts about the geography or topography of US states. The guy who says "no way" when using a tool in a way he'd never used before. McMullin appliance guy. When I started using TikTok I loved that I got those videos and that's why I really liked using it. I follow all of those accounts, and on my FYP I *never* see those videos anymore. I get plenty of janky ass women with no teeth wearing TRUMP MAGA 2024 live videos, one after the other, or some chud "ALL ABORTION IS MURDER, PROVE ME WRONG" live, and plenty of TikTok shop crap, probably every third video is TikTok shop, and my algorithm gives me none of the stuff I like. I'm not alone on this too, young people notice the trend of TikTok not recommending "fun" content anymore, they hate it, but they can't quit it.

Confirmation bias is probably worse on TikTok than any other platform right now, maybe Instagram as well but I don't use Instagram so I can't talk from experience. If you are depressed and you use TikTok for a week, TikTok will show you more content that depresses you and drive that deeper. If you have an eating disorder or body dysmorphia, TikTok will subtly show you content that makes that body dysmorphia worse. If you believe that your mom is problematic, TikTok will show you more content about your mom being a narcissist and people who are happy that they went no contact with their parents. If you believe that COVID vaccines cause myocarditis, TikTok will show you more videos of myocarditis sufferers than you could ever find otherwise. If you are into Jill Stein a little bit, TikTok will push you into Jill Stein as hard as it can. There are clinical studies about the really pernicious ones -- body dysmorphia, developing diseases that people didn't have before, depression spirals -- these are all well documented and proven, but it's the subtle ones that I think are as influential and weird.

There is still stuff on TikTok that I love, and I also love the way that the algorithm shows me stuff that I love without me even knowing that I love it. Weird animated workplace safety videos from China. I love that shit, it's so accidentally hilarious, it makes me laugh. Videogame glitches, I love stupid videogame glitches, and I might look up "videogame glitches" on YouTUbe one day or something, but I love that TikTok is guaranteed to show me some stupid Red Dead Redemption 2 mod glitch and it makes me sensible chuckle every time. Occassionally I get some deep science content or deep math concept, and I really appreciate that, it's something I'd never look up on my own, and then I realize, "Hey... I like this..."

Despite all of the issues, TikTok is still, probably, the only social media platform that I enjoy using (other than, like chat with my friends, Xbox Live, PSN, Fantasy football, forums, etc). Like, I don't enjoy using Twitter. I quit FB/IG because I actively un-enjoyed them. Reddit is fine I guess because I have my hobbies on there. But I used to say that TIkTOk is the only social media platform that routinely "sparks joy," that it's a joyful, fun platform. I don't think it is anymore. The algorithm is significantly darker (and I don't believe that this is a change in me -- I started using TikTok sometime around 2019, 2020, during the pandemic, and I definitely was darker in the Trump age during peak death and despair than I am today), TikTok shop is just overwhelming, creators who I use to really enjoy their content have almost all succumbed to selling shit via TikTok (even creators who used to make fun of stupid internet shit that doesn't work now all sell stupid internet shit that doesn't work), the ads are worse than ever before even outside of Shop content, and the overwhelming abundance of MAGA Live content is just exhausting and inescapable.

ALso, in the US, a major Trump PAC owner owns a minority stake in the American subsidiary of Bytedance. It is as pro-Trump of a platform as any other.

I hope one day this type of energy rears up against the food industry.

Fuck 'em up. No under 18 should be served by an algorithm on social media

TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook are poison to a kid's mind when unregulated. Obviously, parents are mostly to blame, but I would love some accountability on the part of these corporations.

[Potato]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Going to be walking on eggshells here slightly but I think this is an issue worth bringing up. It's something that has bothered me multiple times and I know it's something other people have brought up in the past as well.

I think mods need to be better at communicating the reasons for a ban, especially when the banned person in question is asking for it to be explained to them. I want to note that I think there's a big difference between "why was i banned plz unban" and "Could you explain what you meant by this? I don't really understand what I did wrong here." but both are treated exactly the same and given the same dismissive non-responses.

So I do kind of have to talk about my experience to talk about this but I need to make my intentions in doing so clear.
I am not relitigating the one week ban I just had. I accept that ban, I am not trying to argue against the ban itself. I know that is against the rules of this thread and from my perspective I am not breaking those rules because what I want to talk about is specifically the issue regarding the responses given through the Ticket system. To emphasize this point, I am not including any details about the ban in question, and thus will not post what my ticket was in full (because it did have me explaining my perspective on the situation), but I will quote something I said in it that should hopefully make clear to anyone reading this post what the intention of the ticket was.

First of all, it wasn't sent under the "Ban Appeal" option, because I was not trying to appeal the ban, it was sent under the "Moderation Inquiry" option.
And here's some of what I said in it:
"I want to try and understand where this ban is coming from. I recognize it's only week and I'm not trying to argue or start any trouble, I am just legitimately baffled. In what way was I concern trolling?" "what could I have done in this situation"

Now, to make sure I'm not misrepresenting things, the full ticket was three paragraphs, but for the sake of not getting into specifics of the ban, I present the above as my example that I was, from my perspective rather clearly, trying to get further clarification and understanding about why I was banned because I truly honestly did not understand it. I was not trying to appeal the ban. I wrote this Ticket fully ready to accept whatever further explanation I got.

This is the response, four days later:


I was really confused by this. I didn't say anything about the ban being on my record. I was asking for more information.
I thought about sending another ticket but I knew from past experience it would just be Rejected. So I sat on this for the remainder of my ban and went back and forth on if it would be worth making a post in this thread. Ultimately I decided it was, not for me specifically, I'm no longer asking about this particular ban, I am bringing this up because I think it's a symptom of a larger problem.

First of all, let's all admit that it really comes across like whoever responded didn't really read what my ticket said. They probably skimmed it, saw me talking about the ban, and then just wrote that it was staying on the assumption I was trying to appeal the ban (even thought it wasn't in that category...). But also the wording here is just so detached, so dismissive. The only reason I don't think this is an automated response is because it took four days to get. If I'm wrong about this and my Ticket was read in full, then the read was painted with an assumption and ignored both what I was saying within it and what category it was sent under.

So here's what I started thinking about during the rest of my ban.
What is the point of a short ban on ResetEra?

Like, the point of a Permanent Ban is obvious, the staff have decided that you are no longer welcome on this forum. Pretty clear cut there. So what about the short ones? No other forum I have been on does them. But they're a slap on the wrist, right? A "go sit in the corner and think about what you did". Okay, I've made peace with that. It still feels pretty bad when it happens but that's how Era rolls. Well, how can someone think about what they did if they don't understand it? Surely the point of a ban like this requires the banned user to be able to reflect. I honestly wonder what percentage of bans have happened where the person never really understood why they were banned and just let it go.

Part of the problem is also the vibe that the mods always assume the absolute worst intentions possible from every user. Like, people complain about this all the time too. And from my perspective you can see it in the dismissive response I got. But I also imagine that a lot of mods will scoff at the idea that we deserve further explanations at all, they might think that everyone is just looking to argue and undermine them or whatever. But I really don't think that's the case and I think the culture here would be a lot healthier if there were better channels of communication between these two "sides".

So here's where my thoughts are at. The short single sentence ban messages aren't really enough. I think people deserve a little bit more about why they've been banned. I'm not saying every single one week ban needs to be sent a personal five paragraph essay on what they did wrong or anything. But a little more information is probably due and if people actively ask for a better explanation, that should be provided to them. Even if every other person in the thread understands why they were banned, if the banned person themselves doesn't then the ban doesn't really have any purpose beyond people who didn't like their post feeling satisfied they got someone in trouble with the teachers. And maybe the people seeking further information won't accept the answer given but I think there at least needs to be a way to get that answer. I think the Ticket system should be a reliable method that people feel comfortable and safe to use. It shouldn't feel like poking a sleeping bear, provided the Ticket isn't obviously abusive towards the staff reading it.

I really hope my intention has come across here. I hope this doesn't just sound like me whining about my ban because that's really not what I'm trying to do here. And while I do think the response to my ticket was kind of insulting, I'm not even complaining about that. I just think that communication between mods and users has always been at the root of most of the issues raised in this thread and I think this is one department where there needs to be some improvement. Whenever there's a big blowup here about someone being banned the mods say the banned person can send a ticket if they want to talk about it. Well that's clearly not true. This has happened to me multiple times and I know I've seen others complain about it too. There is no avenue of discussion within the ticket system. You are dismissed and the ticket closed without response. There has to be a better way.

Well, whatever happens, I thank anyone who took the time to read this post. I've been thinking about it a lot the past few days.

Known mod cock gobbler melts down when hit with the hammer themselves. Many such cases

I agree extremely much with this.

I have gotten banned at times where a post of mine was interpreted in such a way I wasn't even able to comprehend. I sincerely asked for an explanation, only to not commit the same error twice, and gotten the same "After reviewing your ban, we have decided it should remain in your record".

And I'm like "wtf okay, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you to explain it to me in a way it's not just a generic one line message on top of my banned post"

Exact same thing happened to me. I asked for a clarification about a warning I received. I wasn't sure which part of my post was moderable. The only response was "the warning will stay on record". Ok...? That ain't what I asked

Like you, I also filed it under Moderation Inquiry and not Appeals. I won't pretend I'd say no to having it lifted if it was misread, but the core of my ticket was to ask for clarification.

Might as well nuke the entire "Moderation Inquiry" ticket category, because it's clearly not helping much.

Not surprised so many got the exact same response over the exact same issue but I'm glad you're all putting yourselves out there to confirm what I already suspected. This is a frequent occurrence and it needs to change. I'm not trying to "come at" the staff here or anything but surely they have to understand how frustrating it must be to be in the position where you're trying to understand what lesson you should even be learning and instead they clearly didn't even bother to read your ticket or engage with you with even a single ounce of good faith. Whatever it is about the ticket system and how it's being handled that is leading to this happening, I think it's something that should be addressed.

I love when Morricunt acts like she wasn't part of the same moderation team that created this cluster fuck in the first place. You're complicit you cunt!

[Besticus Maximus]

Complicit, but excluded from power 

Into the discard pile you go Morrigan, need to make room for Princess Bubblegum and more wlw threads

[Chumbawumbafan69]

As always they're against more legislation unless(!) it mirrors how they feel on a particular day.