Random News not worthy of own thread

[chew-ie]

This political week just keeps on getting crazier as the ex-Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested as part of the finance inquiry that is currently ongoing. To be honest, this one got me, I had not seen it coming, unlike Trump and Johnson.

Oh boy

[Gavrushka]

A dead woman knocks on her coffin lid during her wake.

I'd have needed my own coffin if I'd been in attendance...

[felter]

Just curious does anyone here still use Twitter, if you do, how is it going with the new max amount of posts you can read. I can't imagine that this idea of Musk's will be good, I mean he needs to get as much advertisement as possible and by limiting the amount of posts people can view, surely that also limits the amount of advertisement you can throw at them. Don't get me wrong, I get why he is doing it, but it sounds like the most stupidest idea he could come up with. To be honest, I do think if he hadn't sacked all of the security staff, I'm sure they probably would have come up with a better solution than putting limits in place.

[chew-ie]

I always use alternative frontends which circumvent most of the limitations. Once they don't work anymore Twitter will become irrelevant for me. (I neither let anyone track me nor spam me with nonsene UI)

[Observe]

I hop on Twitter for a few minutes daily to check the few who am interested in following. As an "unverified" member, my view quota is less than paying members, but I haven't run up against the limit. This is supposedly a temporary measure to combat other companies scraping Twitter to feed their AI datasets, which causes Twitter to have to increase their servers to accommodate.

I don't know what solution they will come up with long-term, but for the reasons you mentioned, this is not a very good solution.

[mr.WHO]

I think the bigger problem is that rather sooner, than later, such limits will come to the other sites as they all operate on loss.
Imagine daily limit on YT videos to push for YT subscription program.

[chew-ie]

For Twitduh it might be a temporary situation until they sort out their mess: user sysop408@mastodon (tl;dr twitter ddosing itself thus anonymous access got cut).

[mr.WHO]

I hate being right, but it seem YT already testing "3 video limit with adblock".
At least the good thing is that I start to hate YT more and more, so eventually if I have to choose between YT or adblock, it will be very easy choice.

[Alan Phipps]

I find it rather surreal that service to personal systems with adblockers would be limited or constrained somehow. If *I* install an adblocker on *my* system, then it means that *I* don't want to see those ads and that *I* would never have bought anything as a result of them anyway. How does that in any way affect the service provider marketing success parameters to the extent that they need to somehow further penalise *me*?

What's next, reduced service content from commercial TV channels if you go to the toilet or make a drink during ad breaks?

[mr.WHO]

What's next, reduced service content from commercial TV channels if you go to the toilet or make a drink during ad breaks?

There is already several patents for ads that require you to have camera and be present to physically watch the whole ad.
Microsoft is thinking about introducing having compulsory camera and face reckognition log in as "security standard".

Welcome to Black Mirror in real life, soonTM.

[Ketraar]

What's next, reduced service content from commercial TV channels if you go to the toilet or make a drink during ad breaks?

Targeted adds is what allows these channels to get any revenue. The old-school TV adds are just done on masse, but they too get their revenue defined by how many people watch, its just a less accurate metric.

MFG

Ketraar

PS.: I dont like adds as much as the next person, but I do understand that stuff costs money to make and expecting stuff to be free is not very.. lets say, realistic.

[alt3rn1ty]

What's next, reduced service content from commercial TV channels if you go to the toilet or make a drink during ad breaks?

Sony Bravia probably one of the few Smart TVs which doesn't have Microphones or Camera to spy on you and the family.

Although watch out during the setup, lots of third party cookie agreements to disagree with and turn off all the tracking between streaming services that Google and YouView tie in together, its nearly as bad as going through privacy affecting settings on an IPhone or Windows 10+

[alt3rn1ty]

PS.: I dont like adds as much as the next person, but I do understand that stuff costs money to make and expecting stuff to be free is not very.. lets say, realistic.

Same .. but, in the UK we pay a BBC TV License which is enforced by law, BBC news is all I ever really want on TV.
But if I could have a TV that didn't have the BBC channel, and didn't need to pay the license, then I would be more forgiving about advertising.
Now we also have to pay for some streaming services who scoop up all the best content .. I hate TVs these days, way too many channels, and what you want to watch is on multiple paid for streaming services .. stuff that.
The BBC recently started forcing pensioners to pay the TV license aswell, the excuse was they have more costs these days making more channels to be competetive with the streaming services .. Old folk only watch the traditional UK 4 TV Channels anyway, even channel 5 is a button too far for my mother at 94yo, she gets confused with menus so just sticks to the old 1,2,3,4 buttons and volume (actually I dont think she ever watches channel 4 either). Why should she be paying for stuff she will never see?. Money grabbing bar stewards.

I didn't much like Maggy Thatcher as our Prime Minister, but apparently she suggested TVs without the ability to view BBC Channels, which was kicked under the carpet by Lords or Parliament, wish I had been there, sign me up for one of those I would buy it tomorrow.

[CBJ]

Targeted adds is what allows these channels to get any revenue. The old-school TV adds are just done on masse, but they too get their revenue defined by how many people watch, its just a less accurate metric.

I have a legal right to refuse ad targeting metrics from being collected, and I exercise that right. The ads I get are therefore garbage and of no interest to me, and they lose precisely nothing by me blocking those ads entirely. If I have a legal right to refuse ad targeting metrics, then I should have a legal right to block ads too. If they don't want me on their site because I want to exercise my legal rights, then they should be barred from operating in areas where those laws apply.

[Gavrushka]

Targeted adds is what allows these channels to get any revenue. The old-school TV adds are just done on masse, but they too get their revenue defined by how many people watch, its just a less accurate metric.

I have a legal right to refuse ad targeting metrics from being collected, and I exercise that right. The ads I get are therefore garbage and of no interest to me, and they lose precisely nothing by me blocking those ads entirely. If I have a legal right to refuse ad targeting metrics, then I should have a legal right to block ads too. If they don't want me on their site because I want to exercise my legal rights, then they should be barred from operating in areas where those laws apply.

I too have stopped all sites from using targeted advertising, and as a result get some very random guff including female hygiene products and endless online gambling sites (I don't gamble or use female hygiene products. No, honestly!).

But there is one thing that's bugging me, and it only happens with YouTube. - I have every available option disabled to stop them collecting data, and yet they hit me continually with 'Grammarly' adverts. I even open YouTube in a private browser, yet it seems to know I use Microsoft Word constantly, and I don't see how it can legally have that information. It's not a battle I want to take to them, and I do also see other adverts, but you can guarantee I'll get a dozen 'Grammarly' attempts per hour or so of watching videos whether I'm logged in or not.

[Vertigo 7]

Well ol' uncle Google is about to roll out a feature for Youtube that after 3 blocked ads you're no longer allowed to stream video.

[CBJ]

Well ol' uncle Google is about to roll out a feature for Youtube that after 3 blocked ads you're no longer allowed to stream video.

Yes, as someone just said.

I hate being right, but it seem YT already testing "3 video limit with adblock".

[alt3rn1ty]

But there is one thing that's bugging me, and it only happens with YouTube. - I have every available option disabled to stop them collecting data, and yet they hit me continually with 'Grammarly' adverts. I even open YouTube in a private browser, yet it seems to know I use Microsoft Word constantly, and I don't see how it can legally have that information. It's not a battle I want to take to them, and I do also see other adverts, but you can guarantee I'll get a dozen 'Grammarly' attempts per hour or so of watching videos whether I'm logged in or not.

Could be many things, even your ISP if you dont set custom DNS Servers will be logging everywhere you go and probably selling it to third parties.
https://www.consumer-action.org/english ... ur_privacy

Video streams contain far more than just the video these days, in both directions. Your unique IP Address if its fixed by your ISP can be used as an identifier, even the MAC Address used by your router/machines. Also if you have disabled all tracking with YouTube, in the small print of their EULAs they mention somewhere that they still keep your data for up to 2 years after you have opted out. Google/Facebook etcetera are all the same, by default (opt everyone in) gather as much data about everyone as they are legally allowed (in their own country) for as long as possible and change the EULA when its not achieving the aim.
Not a lawyer so some of what I said may not be accurate, but you get the drift. Market research/Data gathering/Peer referencing for influence is a science these days. Just battening down the hatches in your browser is not enough.

If you want complete anonimity, you need to use a VPN. I think the Whistleblower Edward Snowden when he communicated with the world from within Russia used VPNs within VPNs so he could not be traced.

If its online you have lost control of it, whatever "it" is. Just a paragraph of how you write can be algorythmically matched with other posts you make with a different ID on another forum. I gave up trying to be private online ages ago, so long as my machine is secure enough, and my own online behaviour does not lead to bad sites where malware can exploit me, thats good enough. I have no reason to think anyone in the world of an advanced level would wish to target me.

Interesting thought - Did you know your mobile phone has 2 operating systems, the first one to kick in sets two way communication with the network towers, then the second one (Android/IOS) then kicks in to load your interface with the phone. Who updates the first one?, who makes the first one?, and can it be exploited before (or even after) the second has loaded?. I was once told if you dont want anyone infiltrating your phone, take the battery out completely , fun.

If you have an IPhone, have you ever noticed every update switches Bluetooth back on again against your preference?, your phone talks to little boxes in shop windows to track your browsing habits around town, which is added to market research about you. So its valuable to Apple to keep re-enabling it, first thing I do after every update is switch it back off, aswell as check location tracking is also still off.

Oh and watch the sales person who wants to sell you a phone, there is a UELA at the start of its setup and you must be given the opportunity to read it all (circa 300 pages worth), but more importantly you should be the one to click the Agree button if you are going to. Some Mobile shops sales people will try to gloss over that bit and click it for you, saves them time trying to make sales instead of potentially having everyone reading 300 plus pages of EULA.
The EULA by the way is mostly about protecting the company who makes the phone, and they give warnings such as if you install third party Apps, they cannot be held responsible for whatever mischief the App gets up to on that device, like parking Apps with their default installation options might sign you up for £50 per month subscriptions to whatever the programmer has been asked to do.

People do online banking with mobile phones, barking mad.

The digital age.

[mr.WHO]

I guess we are skipping the adpocalypse this time and going straight to adhell

[Observe]

In a blow to censorship, a Federal judge has prohibited the Biden administration from pressuring social media companies to censor free speech. U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty cited substantial evidence of a far-reaching censorship program "depicts an almost dystopian scenario" and that the "United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Minister of Truth'".

Much of this came about because of the Biden administration spreading disinformation during the COVID pandemic regarding the need for widespread lock-downs and pushing pseudo science around vaccines. Not so fun fact: the United States had the highest number of deaths attributed to COVID in the world. Anyway, I see this judgment as a good thing, because the government needs to keep its hands off the ability of people to engage in legal discourse.