In today's news...

OAMP · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

So glad this is one of the few places with a functional multi-quote.

Hentaispider said:
Some corporations are already paying AdBlock+ for acceptable ads to be added to their filter. If adblocking becomes widespread enough, it WILL change behaviour of the advertisers. One can hope that it's in the right direction, but I'm not really too optimistic about that unless there's some SERIOUS legislative changes to force content providers/advertising firms to shape up. Making them responsible for the damages caused by any malware their ads spread, for instance.

The ads aren't the point, though. I don't think we'd really have much argument talking about how annoying they are, the potential malware issues, etc. the point is more what Crawdaddy said.

Crawdaddy said:
It's already happening.

The important thing to remember here is that when it comes to freely-accessible media, it's not really readers/viewers that are the true customers. Rather, it is the advertisers. Fiscally speaking, readers serve as a kind of metric that decides how much worth an ad is. It's the companies that pay for ads that keep the media fiscally stable.

Back in the old paper world it was different, of course, while there were ads there as well, there was also a lot of publications that got by mainly on subscriptions and store-sale, with the readers serving as the direct source of income.

When ad revenues become increasingly uncertain (due to several reason, partly adblocks, but also partly because fewer and fewer people actually click through ads) you gotta do other stuff.

Some try to return to a subscription-based revenue, limiting free readers to a couple of articles a day, or something like that, or have an integrated multimedia subscription that gives you apps for phones and tablets as well as the website and/or the entire online archive of the publication.

But then you have sort of the opposite direction - the erosion of the so-called "separation of between church and state". I'll let a funny guy talk about that:

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.

He's talking about some other issues too, but my point is the reason ad based media is so clickbaity, REGARDLESS of ad block is they want to have as much viewership as possible to raise the prices they can sell the ads for. Yeah, they can narrow the numbers based on detecting ad-block, if they're good, but it's honestly not really in the best interests of the website to actually check, if they want to in turn scam the advertisers. Of course, it's a lot more nuanced in reality, but my point is the news isn't the product, PEOPLE are the product. If lower quality, almost patently untrue news brings in more people, than from their point of view, so be it.

Apologizes to Crawdaddy for not microtargetting my points within his post, but there's not overtly anything in it I disagree with either, so worth another post.

Obsidious said:
Even within my limited financial means, I try to support certain organizations, among them news sites I am particularly fond of. And by god I am not a good samaritan, I think it's a necessity. I don't lecture people though. In fact I believe more people would actively support good journalism if they recognized it as such. Alas, for various reasons, among them the necessity to look for new models for creating revenue and more importantly the steady concentration of publishing houses, quality has been on the decline.

Some of these changes I believe to believe politically motivated, but not all of them. Still there are lots of independent news sites out there for example that try to do their own research, meticulously provide sources after assertions are made and thereby achieve things some people better-off claim not to be able to because of a lack of funding.

I might be expecting too much, but you can't possibly expect people to deliberately pay for products of journalists that regard themselves as teachers foremost, rather than mediators of information.

Also my personal opinion of ad-blockers is rather radical. It should be everybody's right to use them. Trying to ban them or restrict them is like forcing people to let in door-to-door salesmen, especially if you take into account linked ads actively executing code on your machine without your knowledge (javascript), or the websites themselves connecting you not only to necessary content delivery networks, but tracking sites etc.

Trying to be as strict as possible about what goes in and goes out is just common sense.

I actually white list places I feel need the ad revenue. Youtube is whitelisted, because I want to support my favorite LPers, for instance. Granted, youtube ad revenue for channels isn't what it used to be, but I can't possibly Patreon everyone I like, so I feel as if it's the least I can do by not using ad block there and not skipping their ads, because full watches give them more ad revenue (unless it's like a min plus ad, in which case refresh for a better one)

XSI · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Remember the whole SOPA thing?

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Included in TPP(Along with multiple other 'freedoms' for ISPs), and they just agreed it would be great to sign it
I do believe the only US presidential candidates who want to sign it and support this deal are Jeb Bush(lol), and Hillary(Who changed her mind on seeing the massive opposition to it)

Luckily for now the European version remains dead in the water

Obsidious · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

XSI said:
Luckily for now the European version remains dead in the water

Yeah...

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You can't escape the freedom.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot about

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Oh boy, there's something for everybody.

Unknown Squid · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Weary topic for many so skip if you like, but the convoluted business regarding Gamergate and it's opponents reared its head in an unexpected place recently. A curiously "translated" dialogue line in the officially licensed English dub of Prison School, produced and published by Funimation. An editor at Funimation managing to change a characters line to sneak in a personal jab at Gamergate supporters, which has predictably pissed off both the Gamergate crowd, translation purists, and unaffiliated fans of the source material alike.

The original line of...
"I'm a second year. You have to address a superior more politely."
Was changed to...
"Have you got a stick up your ass? Or are you one of those dumbass Gamergate creepshows?"

Funimation of course has come under flak for this and issued a generic corporate apology, although the particular editor responsible certainly hasn't been helping things by taking to Twitter to openly mock his critics and accusing them of supporting rape threats.

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Personal politics shoehorned into stupid places.

XSI · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Obsidious said:
Yeah...

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You can't escape the freedom.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot about
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Oh boy, there's something for everybody.

Oh, great. Another one. Everyone is against it every time, and yet politicians keep supporting these things

Also, Funimation as far as I've heard from my anime liking friends is crap anyway

Also also, Syria map with live updates

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Crawdaddy · Oct 5, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Seriously, fuck TISA, TTP and all these other corporate Trojan horses.

Unknown Squid said:
taking to Twitter to openly mock his critics and accusing them of supporting rape threats.

That's just doing so much damage to civil discourse and reason.

super_slicer · Oct 6, 2015

Re: In today's news...

I think one of the most fundamentally immoral things about these agreements, is that they FORCE governments into a total import/export economy. Don't want your citizens drinking milk that's been flown in from australia (I bet they make good milk, but I prefer to eat food that's grown within 1000 miles of me) or some of the lesser pacific nations? TOO FUCKING BAD, you have to allow it now. Not only that, they actually loosen restrictions and lower standards on what's allowed in.

And the fuckers are flat out lying when they say they're trying to make better working conditions, all they're doing is making it absurdly easy to outsource jobs to countries where the equivalent of a US quarter an hour is a good wage.

As for the gamergate translation thing; are you really surprised that someone who's intellect and maturity are in low enough supply as to be taken in by people like Zoey Quinn, would act out in a childish and idiotic manner?

Crawdaddy · Oct 6, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Another very disturbing issue is that these agreements may contain so-called "ratchet clauses", which means that if a sector is liberalized (privatized, essentially) then it cannot be renationalized, for example, even under a new government. Because fuck democracy, I guess.

Byzantine2014 · Oct 6, 2015

Re: In today's news...

XSI said:
Remember the whole SOPA thing?

You must be registered to see the links

Included in TPP(Along with multiple other 'freedoms' for ISPs), and they just agreed it would be great to sign it
I do believe the only US presidential candidates who want to sign it and support this deal are Jeb Bush(lol), and Hillary(Who changed her mind on seeing the massive opposition to it)

Luckily for now the European version remains dead in the water

F-ing Harper is still pushing through talks, despite the little fact the Tories are only supposed to be in a caretaker role during elections. Also, according to huffington post a document from the TPP states that Crown (government) corporations are to be solely for-profit, essentially no longer being public; you know, I kind of enjoy not being charged a leg and a foot for my bloody mail. I think Harper is trying to destroy what's left of Canada... Fortunately, the NDP have said they would not adhere to any trade deals, although I'm not sure how they'd get out of one.

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XSI said:
...Also, Funimation as far as I've heard from my anime liking friends is crap anyway

Crunchyroll is better usually (and free if you have a friend willing to share), but Funimation has had quite a few good series lately that I can't watch. Their dub team is horrendous though.

Copper · Oct 6, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Unknown Squid said:
Weary topic for many so skip if you like, but the convoluted business regarding Gamergate and it's opponents reared its head in an unexpected place recently. A curiously "translated" dialogue line in the officially licensed English dub of Prison School, produced and published by Funimation. An editor at Funimation managing to change a characters line to sneak in a personal jab at Gamergate supporters, which has predictably pissed off both the Gamergate crowd, translation purists, and unaffiliated fans of the source material alike.

The original line of...
"I'm a second year. You have to address a superior more politely."
Was changed to...
"Have you got a stick up your ass? Or are you one of those dumbass Gamergate creepshows?"

Funimation of course has come under flak for this and issued a generic corporate apology, although the particular editor responsible certainly hasn't been helping things by taking to Twitter to openly mock his critics and accusing them of supporting rape threats.

You must be registered to see the links

Personal politics shoehorned into stupid places.

There's a statement to be made about the sub/dub argument here but rather than get into it, that's about all I'm going to say.

Side note, a vast majority of Crunchyroll is free (no friend necessary), you just have to deal with ads if you don't pay for it.

Cappy · Oct 7, 2015

Re: In today's news...

And then you backpedal, as pathetic pieces of shit like you always do when proven wrong.

Tell me where I was proven wrong? I was referring rather specifically to feminism in relation to the western world, a world in which I live. How has it helped western women, when a large amount of the focus of feminism is based in the western world? I said that I love that it's done great things internationally and although I said that I can't think of anything that's been done in the last five years that has been particularly good I was not being specific enough.

And would you prefer I didn't backpedal when wrong, and perhaps act a bit more like somebody else? Hmm? Yeah that's what I thought. CHANGING YOUR OPINIONS WHEN YOU'RE PROVED WRONG MAKES YOU A PIECE OF SHIT, SAYS RANDOM NEGREPPER.

Hentaispider · Oct 7, 2015

Re: In today's news...

In some slightly better news,

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Surprise surprise, the European court of justice doesn't think mass-surveillance is compatible with human rights.

XSI · Oct 7, 2015

Re: In today's news...

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Plan leaked to deport millions of immigrants from Europe
Full article only available if you're paying, but if I see a full article somewhere I'll share

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Clearly it's not soon enough, they want to leave because apparently its all so bad in Europe they'll riot
Edit: 2013 article. It's been going on way too long

Cappy · Oct 7, 2015

Re: In today's news...

Hopefully their riot control measures will be better than jetsprays of water and billyclubs+shields. Many, many people will die otherwise.

Crawdaddy · Oct 8, 2015

Re: In today's news...

I was rather confused at this article, until I realized it refers to things that happened two years ago.

XSI · Oct 9, 2015

Re: In today's news...

TPP leaked

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It's here, it includes all the SOPA stuff, it will litterally block access to medicines in countries signing it, and it's incredibly dangerous to life as we know it.

ISPs are to cooperate 100% with copyrights claimants or face 'legal incentives', for the internet stuff. For evrything else, it literally says that countries that sign this can not make laws that disagree with anything in the treaty, ever.

super_slicer · Oct 10, 2015

Re: In today's news...

This is going to keep coming up, again and again, until the citizens of these countries stand up and force change in how trade agreements or even laws can be ratified.

Instead of giving the old fat fucks that have excessive interest in these deals the final say, force them to please US. In order for a trade agreement to be ratified, once the entities involved have agreed on the terms they must then go to their citizens and get us to sign off on the document. If they don't get enough signatures it doesn't go through, then they can hold polls to find out what reasons people have for not giving it the ok.

Democracy only works if elected officials serve the will of the people, today they do not, they cannot be trusted to work towards the improvement of ALL their citizens' lives. If we do not put leashes on these incontinent dogs, we're going to wake up to a world they've shit all over so many times that nothing's left BUT the shit.

Lobby for making policy setting and lawmaking an opt in process, where they must get our approval for doing something, instead of the opt out one, where we have to come out in force every time to tell them they can't treat us like cattle to be led to the slaughter, that we have today.

fagballs · Oct 10, 2015

Re: In today's news...

super_slicer said:
then they can hold polls to find out what reasons people have for not giving it the ok.

But no sane person is going to read those 60 pages of horrible, poorly written junk.

XSI · Oct 10, 2015

Re: In today's news...

fagballs said:
But no sane person is going to read those 60 pages of horrible, poorly written junk.

There will always be someone doing it, and that someone will tell others about it

So there is that at least
Europe is standing up against TTIP, so at least there's resistance here

super_slicer · Oct 10, 2015

Re: In today's news...

fagballs said:
But no sane person is going to read those 60 pages of horrible, poorly written junk.

And that will be the first hurdle they have to address, making these things palatable to the average citizen. Remember, they'd have to get enough of us to want the deal to go through, if their documents are unreadable drivel to the majority, they won't get approved.

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