Not OP but your very first sentence was

It’s very simple, valve is a gamer company.

It’s not “whataboutism” to directly respond to your point and try to argue they aren’t a gamer company.

I do agree with you overall though that Epic can suck it.

Yeah that’s exactly what’s happening.

Look at comments above like

may you get the future you are hoping for

A lot of people aren’t interested in learning about AI as it stands today they’re worried about the future.

They see massive corporations trying to replace artists.

If the output is “good” they might just succeed, if the output is “slop” then they can dream of a market solution where consumers band together to look at AI ads/art as lazy and artists get to keep their jobs.

If someone hates AI because of power politics, they’re not trying to speak objectively about it, because that objectivity is perceived to support the tech billionaires who are trying to push AI so hard.

Yea not serious.

Authority means force.

Your dentist does not have the ability, to force you to do anything. They are an “authority” in the sense they know a lot about teeth so we willingly ask them for help.

That is clearly not the same type of authority being discussed in authoritarianism.

Stop comparing Hitler to your dentist.

What? Take the discussion seriously.

We don’t confer power to them. I am the authority and I consent to the dentist cleaning my teeth but the second I say “no” their ability to operate is taken away.

Try telling “no” to a cop trying to arrest you.

A dentist has no authority over you. If you choose not to brush your teeth they can’t force you to, they can’t do dental work unless you willingly seek them put and consent.

A plumber has not authority to enter your home or mess with your plumbing unless you invite them in.

You’re misusing the word “authority” and applying it out of context.

I fully agree.

I think that the way in which we ask those questions is also very important.

They make a good case these tests are exploiting the political climate and illegally targeting minors to make themselves money.

I believe we do this conversation a disservice if we prejudge researchers and jump to conclusions too early when they point out this relationship might be inappropriate.

Nope, but that is an entirely different problem.

Is it? In your last comment you had said?

Also, a depression test? Some people certainly would benefit from knowing that a) no, showing these symptoms is neither normal nor healthy, and b) there can be something done against this.

If you acknowledge that the “depression tests” which show up in targetted ads are not reliable, then I think we both realize a) and b) are not the goals of these tests. Making money is.

So people actually wouldn’t benefit from seeing this, it might actually harm them by giving a bad impression and push them away from legitimate mental health professionals.

This is some weird ass fanfic you are writing about me for asking how the researchers came to their conclusions about LGBT ads, specifically, being judged to be inappropriate.

I’m also asking how the researchers came to their conclusions on what is and isn’t appropriate. Neither of us have the answer.

Beyond that you don’t seem to understand that an “are you gay?” test illegally targetted to children with the intent of stealing their data is much more likely to be hate speech than an “LGBT ad”.

You’re giving a lot of benefit of the doubt towards an online quiz breaking the law, psychologically manipulating and illegally targeting children, and barely any benefit of the doubt to scientific researchers and that bias seems really odd to me.

This thread seems scarily naive for people who are technically knowledgeable enough to be on lemmy.

depression test? Some people certainly would benefit from knowing that a) no, showing these symptoms is neither normal nor healthy, and b) there can be something done against this.

Yes, someone depressed absolutely could benefit from a psychologically administered depression test.

Do you know what they absolutely would not benefit from? A targetted ad directed at them because analytics flagged them as vulnerable which under the guise of the “depression test” gets them to enter a bunch of personal information which they sell to a bunch of spam companies so said depressed person is now getting woken up at 3 am to 30 spam calls.

And now better help is being spammed to you all over YouTube and ads and instead of going to a reputable therapist you get yourself scammed and don’t actually get the real therapist who can help.

Do you genuinely think reliable medical tests are being targeted at you through ads?

You’re classifying all of these as malicious by virtue of being ads, which the researchers obviously didn’t. Take that up with them.

I think you misunderstood the researchers. Quoting the article:

In terms of data protection, tracking is a gray area. “It actually involves psychological manipulation, because the online behavior of users is exploited to attract them with targeted advertising,” points out the Bochum-based researcher.

It appears as though the researchers in the article are the ones painting all targeted ads as inherently malicious, involving psychological manipulation.

Seventy-three percent of the ads that were analyzed used tracking. Generally, users only consent to this practice if they accept optional cookies. However, according to Article 8 of the General Data Protection Regulation, children cannot give valid consent; the parent should give consent instead.

Which is 73% of them. This is already supposed to be illegal.

“Technically, laws do exist that regulate which ads children may and may not be exposed to,” stresses Veelasha Moonsamy. “But they are not being complied with.” This is because, from a technical point of view, there’s no difference between websites designed for children and websites designed for adults.

As children are especially vulnerable to manipulation, there seems to be a correct moral stance and it’s not “advertisers should be free to psychologically manipulate children”.

It comes across like you feel we can’t protect gay/minority children from being exploited by huge corporations online because it would be homophobic to protect gay kids from psychological manipulation.

I question the idea that the reason these were classified as inappropriate was because of sexual pop ups. If that was the case than many innocuous sites with crappy ad practices would have also made it onto the list.

The researchers didn’t classify anything as inappropriate based on pop up ads. That was me explaining to you how they work.

The ad pages have links on them to other ad pages so it’s all one big beast and in action clicking on a gay test could lead to an overtly sexual one or vice versa. Sometimes they both open at the same time in different tabs.

The article explains the researchers downloaded the ads offline and so didn’t interact with them through normal means.

In the next step, the researchers downloaded the ads from these websites, accumulating approximately 70,000 files in total. This was partly because many pages contained several banner ads and partly because the researchers visited each page several times.

So it’s a combo of pop ups and banner ads.

Knowing that queer people exist and that you could be queer isn’t “sexual advertisement,” by the way.

Yeah… obviously I agree that a PSA on gay rights and an “are you gay?” test are not the same thing.

Letting the wider public know queer people exist, and then using psychological manipulation to (illegally remember) target gay children and try to exploit their vulnerabilities are two hugely different things.

The PSA is protecting gay kids, the spam test is attacking them.

What is your point?

Which is why I wanted to know more about how the researchers came to the conclusion that these particular ads were inappropriate.

Fair question, I’d like to know also. But while raising the question you assumed ill intent and were questioning their biases.

The pool that the researchers analyzed contained 1,003 inappropriate ads. Their content ranged from ads for engagement rings and racy underwear to weight loss drugs, dating platforms and tests for homosexuality and depression, as well as sex toys and invitations to chat with women in suggestive clothing and poses.

All it says is that it’s considered inappropriate.

Ads for engagement rings being listed along the “are you gay?” tests shows me that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are being treated more or less equally here. Engagement rings aren’t particularly inappropriate except that they’re used for marriage.

Psychologically manipulating children using the most vulnerable groups as clickbait to try to get them to enter personal information is wrong and children haven’t developed their brains enough to protect them.

These aren’t tests made by queer people to promote innocuous queer products. These are tests made by soulless capitalists trying to exploit insecurity to make them money.

Why should these companies have a right to exploit the insecurities of young kids?

It’s not homophobic to prevent minorities from being manipulated.

Adding an “are you gay?” quiz to the list of inappropriate ads shown to children immediately makes me question the researcher biases and methodology.

Now I’m questioning your biases.

There’s nothing wrong or inappropriate with discussing sexuality/homosexuality with your kids but it absolutely is inappropriate for advertisers to try to target children’s insecurities with “are you gay?” tests.

And these are not actual “tests”. They’re malware. You click on the “test” and a million porn pop ups will open and it starts asking for your email and phone number.

Kids should not be exposed to these. Hell, adults shouldn’t even be.

I don’t think spam pop ups need you defending its right to scam children.

How many ads related to heterosexuality were classified as appropriate?

All of them I’d hope. Those gross underwear ads, porn ads, etc. Kids should not be exposed to sexual advertisements over the internet.

It seems like you’re trying to pull a narrative out of thin air to imply the researchers are homophobic?

It’s not “bad” but it can make you feel sad inside. All those commenter are trying to essentially say “I found this funny”, but they’re never saying anything genuine. Its always a repetitive joke or a meme that you see a thousand times.

Instead of seeing a bunch of different people and diverse reasons people “find a joke funny” they all start to melt into the same person and it expands on this loneliness where all this human interaction is at the tip of our fingers, but only the surface level of ideas can be expressed.

the streaming leader announced that it has created interactive mid-roll ads and pause ads that incorporate generative AI.

Couldn’t find anything except that Spanish might be similar.

It’s a hangover from earlier base 12 counting systems in which things like eggs would be counted in dozens.

You need 12 unique symbols in a base 12 system.

Thirteen through nineteen come from a different language source than eleven and twelve.

(I’m sorry I keep pestering you with questions, I just keep typing)

“Brainwashing” doesn’t exist, people’s opinions most closely coincide with what they believe genuinely benefits them. For more on that concept, Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.”

I can read that, but I assumed it was understood I wasn’t talking about literal brainwashing but simply the fact that propaganda is effective.

I think the fact we’re in agreement the system needs to go regardless of opinion polls so this is sort of a moot point.

I also don’t know what you mean by “truth going against Socialist values.” Dogmatism isn’t a Socialist value, if something Socialists believe goes against truth, then the Socialist value is to correct course. This is baked-into Marxism from the outset, it’s Marx’s entire modus operandi via Dialectical Materialism.

I mean that interactions between humans can not fully be understood through ideological motivations alone, but there are more basic ones like human greed, laziness, or incompetence that can find their way into even the most good faith movements.

Looking at the ideology of Jesus and then looking at the Catholic Church tells me ideology alone is not enough, but that accountability and anti corruption measures need to be formalized as legal processes into the state as long as it’s a seat of power.

The ideology itself may promote Dialectical Materialism, but does the bureaucracy/system have mechanisms to produce accountability?

If moderators meant to inspect would be scientific publications or books grow bored, lazy, incompetant or corrupt, they might end up censoring something that is needed for the next transition and according to the principles of Dialectical Materialism could become a new conflict (between state Socialist bureaucrats and developing classless communists) that requires a new theory to progress beyond.

I’m not intending to unfairly critique socialism, corruption and conflict is a problem for all existent governments and states.

In Western democracies “freedom of the press” is intended to be a counterbalance against this type of tyranny of the government.

While Communist democracies may have recognized the susceptibility of the “free press” to being bought up by capitalists and turned into a propaganda arm, and so has put limitations on it, it’s also removed the check against tyranny of the government. I’m not sure what its replaced it with?

If people are intended to vote out corrupt governments, that relationship breaks down if the corrupt government has sole control over the narratives. You’d be relying on the government to accurately report on its own corruption to be properly informed and that seems problematic, and could potentially be a sticking point on the further transition.

For starters, you’re absolutely on the right track, remaining Capitalist countries would see lowering rates of profit over time as they monopolize their own resources, and then would seek the resources and potential customers of other countries. The system has this baked-in, leading to war.

Is this just inevitable then? That seems like it’s the trajectory of capitalism anyway.

If so, all a Socialist country would have to do is hold on long enough for late stage capitalism to come to roost. Then they’re outproducing the capitalists, and if the capitalists decide to wage a war its too late. They don’t have the production.

The US is burning all its bridges, tarrifing itself for no explainable reason, and making enemies out of allies while China, they are leading the green revolution and are capable of acknowledging climate change.

China is investing in the correct places for the future. I don’t even know if the US could win a war against them today, let alone tomorrow.

Also are there any people who’ve addressed the unique need for nuclear dearmament in these late term stages? That seems to be a complicated problem.

Haha fair, that fits the definition of Lost-like, but I was thinking of that narrow era of network mystery boxes that popped up in the immediate aftermath of Lost chasing its success.

No matter how good they were, none of them were Lost so they got canceled. (Except for Fringe thank god)

From at least gets to live outside that shadow.

I fully understand what you’re trying to say about “authoritarianism.” My point is that the idea of “excess control” is a matter of perspective.

That’s true. I think the perspective I’ve been trying to put forward is one of civil liberties.

I get that 99 times out of 100 your typical block here with liberals is that “private property rights” is inherent to these liberties and we could never agree beyond it but that’s actually not me.

I think you can separate capitalism from human rights, I don’t see these in conflict.

I get frustrated when disagreements are painted as toxic manipulation on my part, as it avoids engaging with the points at hand and paints me as a deliberately malicious person.

I do too, I apologize.

I feel like this medium itself is inherently manipulative and with the upvote downvote system I’m always subconsciously aware I could be downvoted and you’re subconsciously aware of it and it just defaults the human mind into this adversarial role where we’re trying to win over each other, even if I don’t mean to.

Just trying to step back and notice it is also part of what i mean when I say we can account for our biases.

What exists are systems and people, and the Chinese system has very high approval rates.

We looked at the data, but as long as I currently hold the belief that the media isn’t free to criticize the government, I have to be suspicious that approval rates can be manufactured consent just like western media can do.

One of the laws I mentioned before said if a civilian wants to write a book about a high ranking party member they need the party’s permission.

There is preventing capitalists from paying for a bunch of pro capitalist publications because they have more money than you, and then there’s an individual writing a pro capitalist book because they really believe in it.

Ideally, in a world free of the capitalist manipulation of the west, the lone individual writing a pro capitalist book shouldn’t be a problem. Its not going to be popular because its not being artificially promoted.

But they’re being hit by the laws anyway because the government deems it against socialist values.

This worries me because we’re going to need truths that go against socialist values in the transition to the classless society.

I think we are past the point of useful conversation on bias, and we aren’t really going to see eye to eye. It’s impossible to be unbiased, so when a source with an opposing bias admits positives, I tend to place more weight there than a positive vias espousing positives.

That its impossible to be unbiased we do actually agree on.

I think some people though make ideology core to their thinking. A MAGA person who sees the world through that lens is just full on brainwashed for example.

Obviously no one’s going to be perfect about it, me included, but I attempt at least to adhere to science, empirical data and the scientific method as my core as much as I can, and actively challenge my beliefs and try to let ideology flow downstream of reality as much as possible.

That’s why I place my priority on the methodology and data. I’m trying to apply a method where bias isn’t assumed outright but can be revealed through scrutiny.

The inherent instability of late stage capitalism forces me as an ally of truth and freedom of thought to fight against fascism and any propaganda no matter how apolotical i would prefer to be. I am radically anti advertisement for example. It appears to me as though over 95% of information that exists is intended to manipulate you into spending money you didn’t intend to spend.

But I would be an irritating ally in that I would naturally seek to question and understand.

I have essentially given up on electoralism as a solution for all of life’s problems, the problem is I was not prepared to become so pessimistic (realistic) so quick and so I have nothing to replace it with and a lot of questions.

I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, specifically the first chapter, as its about fascism.

I will do that

Class should be abolished, but we can’t abolish it at the stroke of a pen, it’s a historical action, not a legalistic one.

I didn’t suggest it would be. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page that working class ownership wasn’t the “ideal” but simply a necessity due to power structures.

You mentioned this has to happen on a global stage.

I dont mean to drag this on forever but what would be the problems with attempting the ultimate classless system in say a majority of continents, or in a sphere of influence? Invasion by neighboring capitalist states?

Is it possible to deescalate just a bit. Not that I’m blaming you for the tone, I should drop terms like “gaslighting” as well. That’s just poisoning the discussion and you seem perfectly good faith and as long as im not overly frustrating you I’d hope not to derail this because I am learning more about your perspective.

Agreement doesn’t happen overnight for me but I think about things and it can come in time.

I am not “gaslighting” you about “authoritarianism.” The fact that “authoritarianism” is such a common talking point abused by western media

We’ve both acknowledged that Western Media abuses the definition.

I asked you to forget about their definition, remember. We can define it separate from their abuse of the term.

They also abuse the term “communism”, “marxism”, “socialism”, “capitalism”. I don’t accept your argument that corporate absurdism can dismantle our language word by word.

The word “authoritarian” can mean something.

If I gave you an internal Chinese poll showing the same or better results, you’d be crying foul for it being biased.

I was very clear that bias can be accounted for through proper methodology.

If you linked a poll with bad methodology you’re correct I’d have an issue with that, but id have to actually read the methodology…

Im genuinely confused why you’d even think to accuse me of that? It’s just you and me having a conversation here. How is attacking my character helpful to the learning process?

Fascism is Capitalism in decay, not a unique economic system.

That doesn’t seem fully historically accurate. In the March on Rome Mussolini was enabled in greater part due to the Monarchy just handing him power.

Fascism in Germany grew in conditions where capitalism hadn’t been successful enough to consider to have decayed because reparations were so severe that they couldn’t even rebuild and the economy underwent hyperinflation through the compounding effects of that and the great depression.

The Working Class should be in power becayse they are the majority of people, and the ones creating value, not because they are intrinsically kinder.

Do you actually mean that?

Surely what you mean to say is that class shouldn’t exist?

But as long as effort is needed to make stuff, the people putting in said effort should be the ones having the say.

There are more freedoms than just economic. Disabled people for example do not cleanly fit into labor and so would not adequately be represented by the working class.

It is only in the imperfect moment where the working class should rule because currently capital rules and from that relativist view it is progress.

Since the workers have no say over how their own production is used, and they are unentitled to excess profits derived by their labor, it is an American Revolution “no taxation without representation” level simple.

As long as workers are forced to pay their “excess value” tax to the employer and have no say on the direction of the company, in the minds of the founding fathers they are no different than slaves.

It’s the same logic that rebels and creates a liberal democracy out of a monarchy. Donald Trump actually seems to have a lot of parallels to mad King George.

As for that one particular CNN article, I question it highly. Either the quality or quantity of the event is highly distorted, or important facts are obscured. This is the standard play, CNN is a propaganda outlet and the US has approved 1.6 billion dollars exclusively for anti-PRC propaganda.

Sorry missed this one part.

Yeah in a vacuum I definitely disagree with this, but to some extent it feels somewhat similar to the usage of chemical weapons in WWI.

If one side is gonna use it, it’s just the world we live in that everyone is going to try to use it.

We act more or less peaceful face to face, only choosing to fight each other through proxy wars, but Israel, the US, China, Russia… everyone appears to be actively fighting an information war online, hacking and spying on everyone else with no remorse.

It seems at this point the only way to stop it would be to come to international agreement it’s off the limit for everyone and jointly sanction whoever is caught doing it, but I think we all know that’s never going to happen.

The information war is simply bad for democracies with freedom of speech and just not bad at all for authoritarian governments who censor vast swathes of the information their citizens have access to.

I’ve met more with Xi Jinping than any other world leader has. When he called me to congratulate me on Election Night, he said to me what he said many times before," the president said on Friday. “He said democracies cannot be sustained in the 21st century, autocracies will run the world. Why? Things are changing so rapidly. Democracies require consensus, and it takes time, and you don’t have the time.”

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-naval-academy-speech-china-democracy-warning-1710966