KHRboys

Something that i’ve seen happening in my notifications this week is a new kind of porn blog interacting with my posts, and i want to explain WHY its so important to block them.

In the past all that would happen if a porn blog would follow you is just that, they’d follow you. It was all to do with google algorithyms where if a porn blog was shown as ‘linked’ or following a legitimate site/blog then it increased the place they came in the google searches. Great if you are one of those scam websites that gets people to click on links that either plant malware or are just shady as fuck.  Porn blogs were also sometimes shut down without warning so all the scammers hard work was over and gone. Good for us, not good for them. Most of these blogs were just stolen gifs/videos from other porn blogs anyway. If you thought gif stealing was bad/rife in the geek/nerd fandoms, just have a peep at the porn blogs.

Well a lot of the search engines etc caught onto this and built controls into their software, so they found a new way of getting (or at least trying to get) people to click on links to take them off of the tumblr site. This is by finding a random post from a legitimate blogger, which could be about anything, and either deleting the entire content of the post and adding in some ridiculous comment like ‘For more fun follow this link’ with a hyperlink off of tumblr, or if its a photo that in any way is either fun/a meme/or a little nsfw, they keep that in place and just add their link like above. Scroll down their blog and literally every single post will be a reblog and have exactly the same comment on, getting you to click and take you off site.

What does this matter i hear you ask? Well, when it comes to reporting a post, it helps to confuse the tumblr bots/staff as to what’s being reported… the comment or the original post? This means that when a bunch of posts are reported, they are all coming from different originators, this will make tumblr staff’s life even harder, and legitimate blogs are at risk of someone hitting ‘deactivate blog’ in the admin settings, meaning YOU COULD LOOSE YOUR ENTIRE BLOG BECAUSE SOME ASSHOLE PORN BOT REBLOGGED FROM YOU.

Then flag for spam and block:

You can do it on mobile, either clicking the pic of the note, or going to the reblog and reporting the blog itself.

Americans aren’t told this shit. 

The only thing we’re taught about any Middle Eastern country in school is that 1) the region exists 2) it’s where The War is happening and 3) Muslim people live there. That’s it. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get into the Hammurabi Code and some early Babylonian stuff but American schools seem to think that if it happened outside Europe and before the colonial period, or makes America look bad and isn’t about A Very Watered Down Version of What Slavery Was, it’s not important.

Info on this is almost notoriously hard to find. It’s not in any texts on American and Russian involvement in the Middle East during the Cold War that I can find. You have to specifically look for a book about the Shah’s return to power, and even then you’d be hard pressed to find a book like that at your local bookstore. Once you get into some higher level college courses you might know about it, but the people who can afford those are more likely to already be indoctrinated into a certain Way of Thinking (read: they’re racist as shit) by the time they get there. And it’s almost like you have to know about it beforehand if you want to find information on it.

She’s 60. She never heard of this.

As I was explaining this and how, during the Regan years, we funded Osama Bin Laden to fight against Russia, leading to the destruction of much of the infrastructure in the region, one of the plant workers came in to get his badge fixed.

He works in the quality control lab. He served 15 years active duty in the Army. Super smart guy, has a masters in chemistry and another masters in biology, raises saltwater fish in his spare time for sale, has the saltwater aquarium setup of the gods.  Raises rare corals too, some of which he donates to be used in re-seeding reefs around the world, but that’s a side tangent.

And he listened for a minute, then nodded and said “Yeah. I was there during that. I helped train people to fight. They wanted us to help them build schools and hospitals, after, but we were only interested in them as cannon fodder. Left the whole area in ruins. I wasn’t surprised when they hated us for it later. Told people then it would happen. We let them know then that they were only valuable to America as expendable bodies. Why wouldn’t they resent us for that?”

And she just looked floored.

“So…” She started, after a few minutes. “What do you think of Trump?”

“I hate him. He’s a coward and he’s going to get good people killed.” He didn’t even blink. “

She looked back and forth between us for a second, and then asked how I knew all this.

“I research things.” I said. “Google is great.” He nodded enthusiastically.

And she just sat there for a second and then said, really quietly, “I didn’t know.”

She lived through it.

We never studied the Vietnam War. Korea. No current events. No ancient cultures. No history of other countries. When 9-11 happened I was in high school, and me and my classmates legitimately had no idea who would attack the U.S. or why. We were baffled. Because we were taught our entire lives that America is always the good guy.

🚨 The internet needs you 🚨

You’re up again, Tumblr. 

Back in 2015 you demanded that the FCC adopt strict net neutrality rules and establish a free and open internet. And you won. 

That should’ve been the end of it. But apparently not.

The new head of the FCC wants to undo the net neutrality protections you fought so hard for.

His proposed changes open the door to your web traffic being slowed down, or even blocked altogether. You could be forced to pay extra to use your favorite apps. You could even be prevented from getting news from the sources you trust.

Title II protects consumers and democracy by ensuring all voices can be heard.

You know the drill. Here’s what to do:

The FCC is taking comments from the public, and dearfcc.org is making it as simple as possible for you to make your voice heard.

Go there now 👉 dearfcc.org ✌️

You’ll just need to provide a name, an address, and then say a little bit about why rolling back Title II protections is a bad idea. If you’re not quite sure what to write, here’s something to get you started:

I’m writing to urge you to keep our Open Internet rules based on Title II in place. Without them, we could lose the internet as we know it.

The proposed changes to FCC rules would allow fast lanes for sites that pay, and force everyone else into slow lanes. We’ve already seen access to streaming services like Netflix, popular games like League of Legends, and communication platforms like FaceTime slowed down, or even blocked. Conditions like this hurt businesses large and small, and penalize the users who patronize them. 

The changes also open the door to unfair taxes on internet users, and could also make it harder for blogs, nonprofits, artists, and others who can’t pay up to have their voices heard.

Please leave the existing net neutrality rules based on Title II in place.

Thank you!

If you need more ammo, feel free to quote these experts from our net neutrality Issue Time. TechCrunch and Battle for the Net also have some good starters.