Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler explains why the FCC must have jurisdiction over cybersecurity to protect America's networks.
āAmericans, your calls and texts can be monitored by Chinese spies,ā a Washington Post opinion piece recently headlined. China has āgrowing cyber-sophistication and relentless ambition to undermine U.S. infrastructureā another Post article reported. Some analyses trace the recent exploitation to a telecommunications network backdoor created early in the era of digital networks to allow for court-authorized wiretaps.
When the digital wiretap law was passed in 1994, no one foresaw the kind of sophisticated intrusions apparently developed by the Chinese. It is an experience that we must remember as the design of digital network technology continues to evolve.Ā
I helped negotiate the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) that, some fear, created the exploitable access for Chinese spies. The concern at the time was that the evolution from analog to digital telecommunications was hindering law enforcement. āSome of the problems encountered by law enforcement relate to the explosive growth of cellular and other wireless services,ā the House committee report explained. ā[T]he increasing amount of transactional data generated by the millions of users of on-line servicesā was an accompanying problem. Written 30 years ago, it is a description of todayās communications environment, in which wireless networks deliver online digital information.
At the time, I was the CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), the wireless industryās trade association. Along with wired communications providers, our members were concerned about the way the FBI was proposing to monitor communications across the new digital technology. After detailed and lengthy negotiations, industry and law enforcement mutually agreed to a result that addressed the FBIās concerns about access to the new technology, while also addressing industry concerns.
On August 11, 1994, I sat next to FBI Director Louis Freeh before a joint House and Senate hearing to announce that we had reached an agreement on the CALEA legislation and to urge its passage. That what we jointly endorsed that day could, decades later, be potentially hackable by Chinese spies was not part of that discussion.
Todayā30 years after CALEAāa new digital wireless technology promoted by both the industry and government is raising new cyber risks. Called Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN), it is a new technical standard that seeks to copy for telecommunications infrastructure the scale and savings enjoyed by the computer industryās interoperability of different pieces of network equipment from different vendors. In O-RAN, the network functions once performed by purpose-built hardware are instead virtualized in software. Based on input from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Commerce, the software is broken into multiple layers, thus expanding the number of vendors.
The O-RAN concept is an important step forward that will deliver increased capabilities at decreased costs. Accompanying these advantages, however, is the challenge to mitigate the increased risk of cyberattacks resulting from software that relies in part on open-source code running on commodity hardware.Ā
Earlier networks ran on proprietary equipment utilizing proprietary software that offered focused protection against attacks. Moving more functions to hackable software that is disaggregated from a purpose-built network appliance creates new pathways to attack these new networks.
Another attractive aspect of O-RAN is how the shift to virtualize hardware breaks the chokehold of the traditional suppliers of network equipment. This advantages cybersecurity because it creates alternatives to Chinese hardware manufacturers, such as Huawei. Yet, this too comes with the countervailing paradox that such supplier diversity represents another increase in the number of attack trajectories in the networks. Ā
As the European Unionās Report on the Cybersecurity of Open Radio Access Networks concluded, while there are security benefits to the diversification of suppliers, āby introducing a new approach, new interfaces and new types of RAN components potentially coming from multiple suppliers, Open RAN would exacerbate a number of the security risks of 5G networks and expand the attack surface.ā
Network operators and law enforcement were reportedly blindsided by the ability of Chinese hackers to create advanced persistent threats (APTs) to exploit CALEA. This experience, however, is but the most current of many warnings that the networks on which our nation relies are vulnerable. Whatever the outcome of the ongoing investigation, the latest exploitation should send a message that we need cybersecurity as a forethought, rather than an afterthought, in the design of digital networks, accompanied by ongoing oversight of network security.
Looking back to go forward
Twenty years after CALEA passed, I was chairman of the FCC, the agency responsible for Americaās networks. As chairman, I tried to work with network providers to develop cybersecurity standards that were flexible enough to evolve with the technology and the ever-evolving attack techniques of those seeking to exploit the networks. The irrefutable fact is that every single one of the cyberattacks that affect our nation traverse, at one point or another in their transmission, a private network regulated by the FCC.
What we proposed in 2014 was that the companies implement and report on their adherence to the National Institute of Standards and Technologyās (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. The NIST Framework is a collection of best-practice internal controls developed collaboratively with industry that is continually evolving to help companies protect against cyberattacks. Along with implementing the voluntary NIST Framework, we asked the industry to identify where they set their objective cyber-risk threshold, their progress toward implementation of the Framework, and the steps taken to cure internal control shortfalls.
It was a new approach to network oversight that stopped short of regulatory micromanagement in favor of standards-based expectations. āThe communications sector is at a critical juncture,ā I said in a June 14, 2014, speech laying out the new program. āWe know those [cyber] threats are growing. And we have agreed that industry-based solutions are the right approachā¦ We will implement this approach and measure results. It is those results that will tell us what, if any, next steps must be taken.ā
Unfortunately, the effort fell apart when the companies resisted a plan for reporting to the FCC. The industry argued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was a better place for such oversight. DHS, of course, had no regulatory authority over the networks. The Trump FCC then followed the industryās preference and ceased the FCC initiative.Ā
DHS subsequently established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is doing great work to advance best practices across the economy. Absent regulatory authority, however, such efforts can only go so far.Ā Cyber risk is a business risk; at the end of the day, how much a company invests in risk reduction is a bottom-line decision. The appropriate role for a regulator such as the FCC should be to establish expectations for such decisions to stimulate sufficient cyber protection by the nationās networksāand then to inspect the results.
Today, the FCCās minimal cybersecurity reporting obligations are constrained to cyber incidents that lead to outages, with no reporting requirements for compromises to confidentiality or network integrity. Amazingly, through its detailed reporting requirements on cyber issues, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has more information on cyber shortfalls than the regulator charged with protecting Americaās networks.Ā
Thirty years ago, government and industry worked together to protect public safety and national security in a rapidly evolving digital environment. Ten years ago, industry and government could not come to terms with ongoing cybersecurity oversight at the FCC. The current cyberattacks are a clarion call that network security must be both a forethought in network design and an ongoing regulatory responsibility for the agency entrusted with oversight of the nationās networks.
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1. In what ways do virtual communities both positively and negatively impact individuals' identity and belonging?
Virtual communities have enormous influences in shaping individuals' identities and belongings. On one hand, there is a connectedness among people, an expression of oneself, especially among marginalized groups. Social media creates spaces for people to reconstruct their identities, and their bodies, with the curated creation of online personas, creating homeplace. Yet, this sense of virtual community runs alongside its own negative ramifications-for being toxic, moving spaces that more often than not distort and reinforce harmfully stereotypical ideas of the self. Gamergate became an example of how online communities can foster harassment and exclusion, taking a sense of belonging and making it divisive and hostile.
2. What role does profit play in the construction of ethnic online communities, and how does this possibly affect questions of authenticity and purpose?
Profit is also one of the key factors that shapes ethnic online communities and often directs the course they may take. According to Steven McLaine, the creation and maintenance of these online spaces are increasingly being driven by commercial interests. While these may function as nurturing communities with regard to cultural solidarity and common experience for subaltern ethnicities, commercialism could weaken the authenticity of such means and ends. Commercially oriented interests may commodify cultures to make money, even though more community oriented or culturally specific goals are also at stake in this regard. This tension between profit and purpose raises questions about whether ethnic communities are compromising their values to fit into a broader and profit driven audience.
3. What are the ethical issues raised in the construction of virtual communities, surveillance, privacy, and exploitation of users?
Virtual communities often raise a number of significant ethical issues to do with privacy, surveillance, and exploitation of users. Social networking sites need their users to constantly perform and divulge parts of the self, which raises a concern about privacy and the commodification of personal data. Moreover, most of these platforms track user behaviors, increasingly utilizing this for profit in a manner that has raised key ethical questions about surveillance. The commercial intentions of many of these sites that benefit off of the user's cultural identity. This kind of exploitation can destroy the credibility and legitimacy of ethnic online communities, begging the question of who benefits from these spaces, and at what cost.
4. How do the dynamics of online harassment within communities such as Gamergate point to the darker side of virtual community?
The dynamics of online harassment epitomize the darker side of virtual community with the very same spaces that afford agency for persons and forge solidarities can be those reinforcing toxic environments where harassment and abuse occurred. Gamergate centralized misogyny and racism in an online harassment campaign and demonstrated, in crystal clarity, how quickly such a movement ostensibly about gaming culture could spiral into a tool for cyberbullying. The toxicity can be further exacerbated by anonymity on the internet, where one could commit crimes without immediate repercussions. It also underlines the vulnerability of certain groups, especially women and minorities, within these online spaces. Moderation and community guidelines are important in combating that section of the virtual community.
Hathaway, Jay. What is Gamergate, and why? An Explainer for Non-Geeks
McLaine, Steven. Ethnic Online Communities
Lee, L. (2015).Ā Women of color and social media multitasking blogs-virtual homeplace.
Oh boy time to get into weird shit about how capitalism infects the brain through being able to benefit from it and how despite the stigma, even pirates and communists believe people deserve fair compensation for goods and labor but what is fair is an often debated topic.
So this is going to be a really long post if I'm actually being entirely honest, and as such I will give you a tl;dr up front, however I will say that if all you read is the tl;dr you're going to maybe understand about 15% of the overall situation on this and that's merely because there's no way to explain everything without giving a ton of context and information first and then going into dumb details about it all.
TL;DR essentially people took a model of a communist utopia, learned they could profit from it; and then capitalism took hold and is now destroying not only an entire application through basically micro dosing on micro-transactions, but also through creating extremely hefty barriers of entry to an already expensive hobby that once existed in a way that equalized people.
Now to actually get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm actually talking about here. If you've followed me for any amount of time you likely know the drill by now, I'm putting a "Keep Reading" here to save everyone's dashboards in case you don't already use the feature that automatically scrunches long posts since this is likely going to be pretty hefty as I'm fairly passionate about it and have a lot to say.
I ask that if you've made it this far, and actually clicked the keep reading button; that you stick with me and don't go skipping all over the place. I say this because I'm going to start off pretty boring and seemingly off topic but I promise this is all important for understanding my views on this topic; if you don't agree with me that's totally fine but I ask that you at least try to understand how I'm looking at this from my specific viewpoint.
Point 1 - We are all equal in the eyes of the Internet.
The internet, yea? It's kind of weird to talk about the internet because different people will see it as a different thing. Some of us may see it as nothing more than a collection of data that can be updated, called, and sent between a shared network all over the world. That alone is pretty cool, but others of us may see it as a visible extension of cyberspace. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, I feel as though people ask too much of cyberspace. While I won't get into it here, I have a lot of thoughts on the topic of things like "phantom sense" as VR becomes more of an accessible thing for people, I've found that specific subcultures begin to pop-up, and among them there are people who desperately want Virtual Reality to simply drop the "virtual" and become akin to meatspace.
Now if you're asking me, I personally think that much of the appeal of cyberspace comes specifically from the "cyber" part. Virtual Reality is inherently Virtual and there's nothing actually lesser or wrong about that. People gauge much of Virtual Reality AGAINST Physical Reality, which is dumb. They're both their own reality, why do we want them to be functionally identical, we could make use of so much of what Virtual Reality has to offer if we embrace that it's Virtual. Let's take a quick moment and think about that, what does it mean to be Virtual? To exist within a digital realm?
Well here's a thought experiment for you, let's say I take you and 9 other willing participants and put you all inside different rooms. In these rooms you have nothing but a computer and a desk. On that computer you can access a virtual chat room, there are no profiles, no images or avatars; you merely choose a name to represent yourself and are dropped into a chatroom with 9 other people.
How old are the other participants? Are they around your age group? Are you even aware of their age? Does it matter to you? Did it matter before I asked?
Following this line of thinking, let's look at some other features, are they all the same gender, or different genders? How tall are they? Do they come from a wealthy family? Do they have a job? Are they perhaps disabled at all, in any way? Do they make a lot of money if they do have a job?
I do ask these questions genuinely, so to make this little thought experiment easier to manage let's have you think of this; narrow the number from 10 participants to just 3, you're 1 of them so there are two other people here with you. You cannot physically see them, and everything from their usernames to their appearance is up to your personal interpretation. So I ask you to look over those questions and give them even a baseline answer, it doesn't need to be elaborate; you don't need to give it a lot of thought. You're not making a D&D character with a lengthy backstory. For anyone who said "I'm not doing that" I'll do it as well right here for you, you can ignore this if you wish to do this yourself; I do believe it's important to making my own.
The first other participant other than myself will be an older woman in her late 50s who works as a butcher, she lives a fairly average life; she has a roommate to help pay the bills as she is lower middle class. Even living in a fairly average home, renting no less; she has to save up for any purchases that aren't absolutely necessary for survival.
The other individual I am in this chatroom with is a younger nonbinary individual who claims to be 23, they don't currently have a job as they're studying and attending law school. They come from a wealthy family and while not rich; do enjoy a life as an upper middle class household. Despite their hefty schooling costs they're never short on money to pay for things they want.
Alright cool, now I know who I'm here with; and you know who you're here with, so here's the most important question to ask.
...Does any of that really matter here?
This isn't a deep philosophical conversation, it's a very simple question. Let me elaborate.
Does age define knowledge? Not really, it can help understand something better if you've spent a lot of time with a specific field of study, and yes our brains pick up knowledge better at certain age ranges, but overall it has no real merit over how well we can navigate something. If a 50 year old and a 20 year old are both passionate about learning how to model an avatar, script a code; or exist within a VR space they'll both be able to do so roughly just as well as the other. Sure we're all human and have our own quirks we work through, someone might pick up something far easier than someone else. However the capability to learn is always there.
Does money carry any weight in a digital world? Well, here in this chatroom no. It really doesn't. There's no pay to win system in a social setting like this. Having $1 to my name, or a million doesn't make a difference. I'm not able to see what computers everyone else has, perhaps someone has a really fancy, fast, nice computer; while I'm working with something a little more "run of the mill" but at the end of the day they both access the same internet data.
Things like money, age, physical ability, even social or economic standing; they have no real sway over the virtual. Not unless you account for third party outside influences.
Point 2 - But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge.
So now let's go back to a simpler time on the internet, when VR was still new and we all had to pay upwards of $200 - $300 and even sometimes $400 to strap an oversized projector to our face so we could experience what it's like to have a monitor not even inches from our face. Applications like VRChat were all the rage because most VR applications and games felt more like tech demos, people didn't know how to use the tech yet and most actual home VR headsets were development kits.
VRChat was fairly open source at the time, lending most of it's success to a community building assets, systems, and avatars for their own use within the application.
As with any good open source application a lot of the files and thus the understanding for how things worked were being shared around and people began to notice a pattern as with any form of labor.
Not everyone wanted to put in the time and effort to actually learn. In fact plenty of people who were purchasing VR headsets were fairly wealthy people, sure not everyone; some people got them as gifts or saved up money over the course of a long time; or they'd use large sum of money given during tax returns or holidays as a means to purchase a VR headset while they were on sale.
However yes, a lot of people had a lot of money sitting around and wouldn't mind throwing a couple bucks your way if you were willing to go through the trouble of making them an avatar, world; or asset.
Now, this isn't anything bad on the surface; but it poisoned the well and it began the conflict.
"So you're saying artists commissioned work is bad and it should all be free and artists should starve." Only as much as I'm saying we should piss on the poor. Which is to say, no I'm not saying that; but if you jumped on that train immediately I don't blame you for thinking I'm going there, but bear with me.
As time went on and we developed more and more for VRchat's main engine; we also developed tools like Udon; a scripting language made for VRChat specifically. The ways in which we could customize avatars, worlds, and even assets was ever changing and it seemed like it was only getting more and more complex.
So what happened? Did people provide tools, lessons; and understanding to those around them in hopes there were others who would pick up the knowledge and create brilliant things to continue the ever exponential progress?!
No. Well yes, but mostly no. See some people did in fact provide easy to follow tutorials! You can find plenty out there, at least for basic things; but many saw the chance to really make a point with this.
A point that they understood the system, and you did not.
A point that you were better off paying them for the things they know and you don't.
A point that you should never question them, and that if you fuck up it's your own fault and maybe next time you'll listen.
If you think I'm exaggerating you should consider yourself lucky to have not come face to face with the truly disgusting underbelly of asset sales.
See I don't mind selling goods and services; I am an artist myself and I believe fair compensation is important! If someone likes what you're selling and deems it a fair price that's great, that's a win win; everyone's happy.
However what if the person purchasing your wares doesn't understand their value?
Asset flipping is something we see a lot of, done entirely legally through fair use mind you. People will buy assets along with their commercial license, and then quickly and easily slap those assets onto an amalgamation of other cheap gimmicks only to sell the new model at a profit from it's component parts.
"But that's how things are sold Cryptid, what's so weird about that?"
Well, okay let's look at how sales in physical space works right?
If I buy a single banana, and that costs me $1; then to turn a profit I'll need to sell it for something like $1.25 this is literally just because once you buy my banana, I don't have any more bananas to sell.
So if I sell the banana for $1 I'm at a net neutral, I don't have the ability to generate any additional funds off the single banana I've bought. So let's say I buy 4, I sell each for 1.25 and all 4 sell, now I can buy an additional 1 and I've only made .25 cents.
Well shit, it looks like I need to hike the price by a decent margin if I'm actually going to make any sort of sustainable income from selling bananas right?
But what happens if we say, I have 1 banana that generates infinite bananas. I bought my infinite banana generator for $25 + Tax. Now I could say I want to sell my bananas for $30 because I had to pay $25 to get this one.
However, I can also make infinite bananas, and if my bananas are good quality; they should sell out; or at least sell a decent amount. So rather than pricing a single banana higher than the original price, I should logically sell my bananas a lot cheaper; let's say I sell them for a simple $1.25 same as before. Once I've sold about 20-ish bananas I'll have not only made my money back, but I'll likely have made a small bit of profit.
"But Cryptid, you could have made way more from selling even one single banana at $30! Why gamble on 20 people buying a banana instead of just selling the one!?"
Because if I sell my banana at $30, but you can buy an infinite banana generator for only $25, what's stopping you... wait... what's stopping you from-
No. Hold on you don't know how it works! You couldn't possibly use the banana generator like I can!
NO DON'T GO LOOKING AT THE SOURCE SALES, SURE I LEGALLY HAVE TO CREDIT THE BANANA GENERATOR BUT-
Listen to me it's a very difficult device to understand! You don't have the years of understanding I do! You should pay me instead! You'll only fuck it up! You'll WASTE YOUR MONEY if you buy it from the original creator!
IT'S ME BOY THE PS5!-
Ahem, sorry I got a little sidetracked there. My point with all of this is how digital sales work far differently given that I'm not actually giving up any resources when I make a sale, the product is infinite; and I could sell it over and over again. So selling it for less than it's component parts is essentially saving my buyers some money over buying each individual part and putting it together themselves. I save them time as well since I'd likely have put together all the shaders, blend trees for emotes, menus and submenus for toggles- oh no... hold on why is that still pink? OH MOTHERFUC-
Point 3 - Missing and Outdated scripts, assets, shaders, and best of all fear mongering!
See a big part of this whole sales concept for virtual good comes from the idea that if I sell you an avatar, world, or asset; I'm selling you a completed product. Something I devoted my time and expertise to that you may not have to devote to it. So then what happens when I no longer allow you to contact me for support, and half the product is missing? Well there's no refund policy on the website I use so uh, tough.
This is unfortunately very common. Outdated scripts never being updated while assets still remain up for sale with scripts in them that will absolutely DESTROY your project unless you specifically dedicate time to going through your files with not only an understanding of what each file controls, but also the surgical precision to remove the files in such a way that doesn't accidentally trigger a chain reaction.
Because believe it or not, most of the avatars, worlds, and assets for sale are not ACTUALLY quality made models.
"But Cryptid, the artist sets the price and the consumer deems it fair when they purchase the goods!"
Correct! However, at what point do we argue for false advertisement?
Not only are many of the avatars, worlds; and assets for sale priced at insane prices (we're talking upwards up $150 - $460 for some) but most of these avatars, worlds, and assets do not disclose important information about their products that consumers should be allowed to know prior to purchase. Like how in some cases a file is so big that it can take more than 2 real life days of uninterrupted loading and then still crash unity. Enjoy your $460 world map that doesn't have active support, says you're shit out of luck if you fuck up importing it at all; and doesn't actually load because don't forget, there's no refund policy.
So let's say an avatar, world, or asset DOES actually import correctly.
Once you get through all the fear mongering about how you need to import the model, and no I'm not joking; people are openly lying in their readme files to scare people into following useless instructions.
i.e according to one readme if you import the shaders after the avatar your entire project will become corrupt beyond saving and you'll need to restart from scratch. In reality shaders automatically update if a model calls for them; so importing the shader at any point would simply just update the model to use the correct shaders. In that same vein let's address "YOU NEED TO START A NEW PROJECT, DO NOT IMPORT THIS AVATAR INTO AN EXISTING PROJECT OR IT WILL FUCK UP AND I WILL NOT HELP YOU" guess what? I tested it, like any other avatar/model importing the unity package at any point in the project just, you know; imports it.
I have also heard stories of people saying there are scripts in the unity files that can corrupt your computer's core files if you don't follow their instructions SPECIFICALLY, which A. isn't true; and B. why are you selling what you basically call a potential trojan?
So anyways, once you get through all the fear mongering about how you clearly can't do anything on your own (literally one of the readmes had a link to visit the site that tells you how to log into your account. For reference/context you're not even allowed to get to this point and upload an avatar/world until you've logged into VRChat and been an active user for about a week. They talk down to you and treat you like you're stupid because they rely on you NEEDING them to tell you exactly how to navigate this "super scary" application otherwise you wouldn't pay them upwards of $80 for a model they basically took from other people and used a plugin to glue together.) You can now look over your avatar/world, since you've managed to do the unthinkable and import a unity asset pack correctly!
Not all assets are made equal, and I think it's very important to understand that while yes the artist and consumer enter into an agreement over price that they both deem fair; it's important to understand how capitalism comes in many forms.
In this case I've noticed that Gumroad recycles almost all of their assets from other people on the website, and their models are extremely sub par when you compare them with far cheaper models on Booth. While some Gumroad shops do link back to their Booth counterparts, a lot seem to want this to remain a eldritch knowledge.
So on the off chance everything just works, you're good to go; congratulations I genuinely hope you enjoy your likely overpriced avatar because ultimately that's what matters, if you're happy with what you paid for then there's no harm done.
However in more cases than I care to admit, the readme will tell you to go buy various other plugins and asset packs to make the thing you just bought work.
Now as an example of how to do this right, and it's still shitty; but at least I think it's done right. There's a fishing system for sale that directly mentions in it's website based description that you'll need two other asset packs, those both being linked. Here's the hard part to justify though, for the system itself is about $23 after conversion, the other two asset packs are respectively $50 and $10, so in total something you thought would only be $23 is about $83 if you want it to actually be functional.
Now again in that case everything is listed on the website clear as day and this is at least generally how I see things being listed which is okay with me. However I've seen more cases than I care to admit where this information is advertised as "this avatar has XYZ" and then in the readme says "you'll need to purchase XYZ from [User] to get the XYZ system working!" So now we have false advertisement AND hidden fees?!
When avatars can cost more than $250 and not be a unique model of your own OC or something commissioned and still be missing additional features, sometimes shaders; which require a monthly patreon subscription to access. Only to then see that the avatar/world/asset comes with a ton of stipulations and regulations of use? It's all very hard to figure out what "fair" is anymore.
It may just be my opinion, but when someone sells me something I expect it to be a complete thing that I then own, not something I'm not "legally allowed to edit" or that isn't entirely completed and that I'd need to go purchase additional things for.
Important reminder here, all of this is for a VR application where you just kinda vibe and hang out in a virtual space. People are happy to pay expensive prices for good quality, but few people are willing to deliver good quality; fewer without a ton of rules and restrictions.
Literally not but a week ago my partner was looking at an avatar that specifically said VIEWING the blend shapes was "breaking terms of service" so that's cool. For the record blend shapes are literally just adjustable values most people use for editing an avatar without needing to mess with the mesh. It allows you to hide parts of the avatar so that clothing will fit over the mesh without clipping, or lets you easily adjust face shape to better manage your expressions or facial features.
Can we also quickly touch on the fact that I was helping a friend edit something on their avatar, and found out that the person they bought it from had positioned an entire 3D watermark of their username inside the head of the model which;
they bought the base from someone else.
they bought the clothing from someone else.
they bought the gimmicks and additional features from someone else.
All they did was actually slap it all together.
"Yea but that takes effort" no it really doesn't see that's the thing about Avatar creation, the more you know the less any of this makes sense!
There's a plugin called Modular Avatar, it basically does all the work for you, all you have to do is select the clothing, hair, whatever you want to add to your model; right click it and select modular avatar's "setup outfit" button. It then manages all the bones for you!
This person put more effort into branding the model than they put into putting the avatar together!
I know this because while working on adding one thing to the model, one of it's core outdated scripts fucked up and caused a bunch of issues that we managed to work around by literally never allowing the avatar to enter play mode. Which makes it significantly harder to work with, so we're using two variations of the same project open at the same time, one of which is entirely fucked; but lets us nab values from the avatar while it's in play mode; the other can never enter play mode and must continue to contain a broken and outdated script; because removing it causes the blendshapes to entirely fuck up.
This would be like if I went to google images, found a bunch of pictures of anime characters; slapped one of their heads on another ones body, took another one's hair and slapped it over top, poorly merged all the layers together and then aggressively plastered my signature on it while also totally admitting where I got all the art.
Now I do admit there's a little bit of weird grey area here, see no one is commissioning these avatars; they're just up for sale. So someone who buys it is saying they feel like purchase of this avatar as it is, is entirely fair for the price. Whether or not that's true is besides the point because you could argue that the buyer wasn't forced to pay for something if they didn't want it.
But like, let's do a quick simulation...
Hi welcome to my Gumroad shop, $30 please.
What do you mean you do not want... uh... Shipiku my totally original avatar I made (with assets from other creators) for like $30?! HE HAS GIMMICKS.
...Okay yea looking at that image is physically painful to me, I have created something truly horrific. We should move on, to my favorite part of all of this which is-
Point 4 - The Eroticism Elitist-ism of the Machine!
With the Oculus Quest being a more budget friendly VR Headset for people to pick up more and more people got into VR and thus VRChat by extension. So how did VRChat respond? By making the Unplugged Quest basically the standard for "good quality" which means that a ton of worlds and avatars just won't be accessible to the VR equivalent of taping a chromebook to your face; and yet that will be the new norm. This created a pretty sizable divide in how things function. Now you have a camp of people who refuse to even permit entry to their private worlds unless your avatar is rated "good" because of "performance issues" but why would they care about cramming so many people into their world?
Oh... it's because they are monetizing access. Yea, of course they want everyone to have access to their world, the only way to get in is to know someone who's already in, or sleuth around until you find their discord; then you need to boost their discord and more often than not pay either micro-transactions inside VRChat (because that's a thing now) or pay directly through patreon/donations to the world creator.
On the other hand you have some creators who outright refuse to let quest users access their world. Even though technically the world is optimized enough that a quest user COULD access the world, there are scripts that have been implemented into various worlds that are outright hostile towards quest users, where if it detects you're using a oculus quest headset that isn't plugged into a computer; you'll essentially not be able to interact with the world. There are many ways this is accomplished, in some cases it's literally just having hostile entities that cause you to constantly respawn, other times it's more directly just moving your spawn point to a box way off the map so you're effectively locked behind a prison you can't respawn out of.
As you can imagine there's a good bit of elitism on both sides. Which yes, is just another way people are gatekeeping VR behind a paywall. Not only do you need an expensive headset, but you better buy "the right one" not to mention you'll likely want to/need to pick up full body tracking, and pay a considerable entry fee or upkeep fee to a good handful of private worlds.
"but Cryptid, people are allowed to charge for access to things they create, that's just business!" Yea I'm not saying it's not allowed, I'm saying it's shitty.
I don't insert these blurbs as though I feel like you, the reader; are ALWAYS aggressively saying these things while reading my post. I put these here because they're things I've been told before, and they're things I want to address. So please understand that these aren't hypothetical cases of arguments in my head; nor are they meant to project any personality onto you.
That in mind, let's address this; I'm not saying people aren't allowed to seek capital investment in their hobbies. Obviously as a streamer I would love if people donated to me. However this is more akin to locking my streams behind a paywall, again; totally legal and totally allowed but still kind of a dick move. Why do I have so much problem with it? Well let me explain it this way
I work at an escape room, my CEO once asked my manager what the difference between a group of 7 and a group of 2 was. My manager confidently responded "we make more money from a group of 7" to which the CEO corrected him "no, there is no difference. We do not use any more or less resources, we don't take more time to reset the room; there is no difference." We have also been asked if a group of 2, and a group of 7 come in at the same time; who do we prioritize? The answer? Whoever booked first.
What's the core concept here? Well it's a simple ideology, if we don't use any resources hosting a group, there is no difference between groups; if someone took the time to book with us earlier, we see to them earlier. It's basic logic that we take into account the care that someone has put into being here, and also what we lose in providing them the service of our escape room.
So let's apply this to a private VRChat world.
Remember, VRChat hosts these servers, so I'm not paying any upkeep costs for having an active world. Considering how scripts and programming work I have little need to pay someone to monitor or moderate my world; especially considering I do not take responsibility for the acts of those who visit my world.
Then what is the difference between a private and a public instance of my world?
Well, I'll tell you because there actually IS a difference here.
See private worlds have two very special properties.
Public display, whether streamed to an audience or done in a public world; of any NSFW imagery or behavior will result in a ban. The important take away here is if this is done in PUBLIC. Private worlds and instances are exempt from this. VRChat doesn't care what you do in private as long as it's not being streamed publicly.
Likewise, Private worlds require access to be granted via someone already in the world, and the only people who can access the private world are it's creators. Meaning that if someone wants into my world they HAVE to go through me. If I make it public, then anyone is allowed to access the world, and even host their own private instances of my world. There's one more thing about this that people don't like but we'll get into that a bit later because that's going to be a pretty lengthy discussion.
So what IS the difference? Is it just that you can partake in NSFW shit in a private world? Well, kind of; but it's more that second point that's important.
People understand that VRChat as a whole is a very, let's just say passionate place when it comes to ERP. I have no judgement on the topic, but I think the exploitation of it is a bit unnecessary. By which I mean the hosting of private worlds designed specifically to be clubs, sex parties, or otherwise exclusive NSFW events that people must pay to access. Now obviously any NSFW world is going to be private, but not all require the use of financial compensation to access.
If you're wondering how I know all this:
A. I frequent NSFW communities, my side gig is literally adult animation. Who cares.
B. I have a lot of friends who participate in that sort of thing, I personally live with my partner and while I do understand the appeal of that sort of thing, it doesn't really interest me.
Regardless, it's not exclusive to NSFW worlds, more so that those are the ones I've seen asking extreme prices.
More often than not it's done through patreon, you are given a special role in a discord or you're given access to secret worlds if you pay enough monthly, with some worlds stating that for $100+ a month you can have your picture in the world. Yes, a picture; of your avatar; in an exclusive paywalled world... for $100.
Again I know this goes back to "if the consumer and the seller deem it fair blah blah blah" but if you're still arguing that, you're missing the grander point here.
If that's the case allow me a moment to try to make sense of a summary:
the internet is a place where we leave behind any inequality; a place where you and I, no matter our background, financial situations; or social standing, are equals. We bear no difference in status; only in interests. That is, unless I have access to parts of the internet you do not.
So you pay $499.99 for a headset, congratulations; you had to get a cheaper model because it's what you could afford. Now you're the target of much harassment and general dislike as you bought "the wrong headset" without consideration for how you'd be treated for it. You can't access much of the virtual net, so you decide to spend even more money to buy a few accessories; a cable that will link you directly to your computer for example (or better wifi if you use the wifi link, which yes; good internet also costs money and isn't available to everyone depending on their location. Again it's inequality.)
Now you blend in, you appear to be a PC user like anyone else, congratulations you now have access to almost just about everything, except you don't. You try to join me in a world only to see I'm in a "private instance" and my social obligations say I'm not allowed to answer your invitation request because you didn't pay to be here. I send you a discord link, it's to some random group you've never heard of, you need to join this if you want access to this one world. You can live without it, so you don't click it.
The next day you see I'm again, in a private world. You go to a few public worlds and find they're mostly populated by younger children, random people who don't want to talk to you; and most only have 1 - 2 people, with most instances of even the popular worlds being set to private. So what do you do? You ask to join me, and I again; send you a different link this time. A patreon link, that states you can gain access to the world I'm in for $10 a month, payment up front; and then you'll need to get approved through a discord.
Oh but you can't show up like this, your avatar quality is "poor" you'll need to optimize that. Looking it up online most people say to buy something off Gumroad or Booth, so you look; most avatars are extremely sexualized; the ones you can find aren't "good" quality nor are they optimized and some are outdated by a few years.
Eventually you find one that's not horrible; it's an extra $25. At this point you're paying the following, grabbing these numbers directly from the internet mind you:
$499.99 for a headset.
$79.99 for a link cable (it doesn't even charge the headset)
$24.99 for an avatar that is allowed on the world.
$10 a month for access to the world.
Oh but wait, you're not assured a slot in the private world; it can only support up to 30 people per instance and if you want to reserve a spot you need to boost the discord server, so let's tack on nitro as well, and extra $9.99 per month.
Even if you only do these as a one time payment to access this world once. Here's what you're out, in total: $624.96 before even factoring in taxes.
All of this, so you can experience a few hours of hanging out with a friend. Well, was it worth it? Let's see;
In America, the average hourly wage (not minimum, average) across all 50 states is $29.81 as of December 2020. You can look that up if you'd like I found this number via Indeed so grain of salt and all that.
But let's go ahead and say it's $30 an hour. Now for the record, most people I know work for far less, but we're not concerning ourselves with minimum wage just yet, but we will.
So if you're making $30 an hour, and you need to reach a total of (again rounding to be fair here) $625 and we're not accounting for tax eating half your pay, we're looking at:
((30 an hour * 8 hours per day) * 5 days a week)
or 240*5 = $1200 a week.
Well hey that's not so bad! You make enough in a WEEK to almost buy this all twice o-oh no. I didn't think about cost of living...
Well no this is fine let's just check the average rent!
A quick internet search will tell us "The average rent for an apartment in the U.S. is $1,718."
Well... okay, that sucks. How much is gas right now? Right okay well Forbes says "today's average price of gas in the U.S. is $3.47 per gallon" and I need about 30 gallons per tank, and I need to get gas about twice a month, I live about 15 minutes from my work and I drive a fairly fuel efficient car but that's still roughly $208 I'm spending on gas each month.
What about groceries? Again a quick search says "on average, Americans spent $779 per month on food in 2022" which means we're looking at, without even factoring in utilities, taxes, or ANY leisure activities a grand total of roughly $2,705 per month?!
This mind you, is the AVERAGE. We're low balling some of those prices and not even caring about taxes, fees, and utilities.
But hey it's okay we're making 1,200 per week! So we take that number and multiply it by 4! That means before taxes we're left with 4,800!
Hey speaking of, how does that work? Let's do another average!
Well it turns out because of how taxes work averages are hard, but I'm seeing that about 13.3% is a safe bet, so let's go with that.
13.3% of 4800 = 0.133 Ć 4800 = 638.4
okay, that's not TOO bad right? That leaves us with 4161.6 and then we can pay the monthly costs which leaves us with $1,456.6
Alright so now we can afford rent, gas, groceries, taxes, the works! Plus we have enough left over to pay for our fancy headset, an avatar, and access to a world, plus nitro and... jesus that's a lot isn't it?
What are we left with after all of this? $831.64
I sure hope you don't have any student loans, no credit card payments; no other obligations.
You're left with less money for the month than you made in a day of work.
"Okay sure, but the bulk of that comes from the headset!" Correct again!
One of the cheaper headsets available at that!
But did you notice that the average person would only be able to scrape by if they went out of their way to purchase something and jump through all these hoops? All for what? Paying an extra roughly $45 (20 of which renews every month) for basic access to the thing they bought the $500 headset for? That's considering the avatar you bought was actually only $25, actually still functional; and has everything included with it.
I won't make us run all the numbers again, but I want you to consider that minimum wage in America is $7.25 or just $290 before tax PER WEEK.
Let's contextualize that...
an avatar that costs $25? That's 3.44 hours.
$10 access to patreon? 1.37
Tack on another 1.37 for nitro boosting.
Total cost for that $45? 6.18 hours of work before tax.
Now if you're lucky enough to have a full time job, that's not TOO bad; but this is also just for one singular world. For one singular avatar.
Remember, the cost of living stays the same; the price of gas doesn't change just because you don't get paid as much as the guy at the pump over from yours.
Working at minimum wage you'll make $1,160 a month again; before taxes. That's not even enough to cover the average cost of rent.
So if you don't make enough money to splurge on patreon and discord access, I guess you're just going to have to stick to public lobbies.
Again, it's possible; and it's legal, and that's all fine and whatever.
It's not about whether you CAN; it's about whether you should HAVE TO.
Not only is it true that not everyone can, but I genuinely don't believe anyone should have to.
It's not that I don't believe people should be paid for their hard work, or that some work doesn't "deserve compensation" rather I believe equality extends to things like paywalls.
There have been studies that prove that piracy drops the second people can afford a product. Using a piracy as a "try before you buy" format is one of the most popular; and we see this being so prevalent because for so many people, money is just so tight they can't afford the luxury of leisure activities.
Technically speaking you can access VRChat without the need for a VR Headset, however most worlds are designed around the headset and hand controls. Furthermore, arbitrary rules being held by people with private worlds allow creators to literally make the demand that you use a VR Headset and in some cases you'll not be allowed in the main instance of a private event unless you have full body tracking; which can cost upwards from $300+
Which yes, does in fact mean that gatekeeping doesn't just stop at the paywall, it extends to the disabled.
Imagine if you will, being turned away from a private event that you paid money to go to; just because of the fact you happen to be in a wheelchair and not have the ability to use leg tracking. You love to see ableism slipping into "quality control" don't ya?
Okay so what all do we know now? Let's quickly recap before I get to my last point because boy is this one gonna be a doozy and I want to make sure we're all on the same page before I break that ice and dive into that iceberg never to be heard from again.
For starters we understand that, as far as the internet is concerned; we're all equals. Money, social standing; even your background don't really mean anything here. You're an identity you put forward, allowed to be whoever and whatever you want. Chatrooms, forums, blogs, video games; these things DO but shouldn't; gatekeep their communities by putting up paywalls quite often. This is generally frowned upon more often than it's not, even when it's understood.
We know even when a company states they need to charge membership for the sake of keeping a game running or keeping a website up; we still frown upon the idea of a company gatekeeping content or usability behind a paywall. Yet in spaces like VRChat this gatekeeping is often disguised behind the idea of fair market trading and "supporting indie developers" which in some cases, is actually what's going on, and in others is sleazy cover from the likes of people like me who will point out when putting up a paywall and making demands of your users is, while totally legal and technically allowed; STILL just as shitty.
Which brings us to our next point, which is that even among that market; we have extremely overpriced and broken avatars, worlds, and assets; many of which don't come as a complete package requiring you to obtain other goods and services from other creators to get them working; most of what you can find is a jumbled mess of other people's stuff, haphazardly thrown together and thrown at you for a quick buck, a typically overpriced quick buck at that. With extremely predatory fear mongering designed to keep you from exploring unity and the VRChat Creator Companion to possibly find out how to do things yourself, because remember that this is all absolutely just wizard magic and if you fuck it up your computer will catch on fire and open a portal to hell and then slenderman will come out and Jeff the kill you! Or... you might need to restart unity or something, yea that's more likely... Oh and speaking of actually using VRChat!
Most of the actual populated worlds are hidden behind discords, patreons; or other paywalls. With most public worlds including additional features only available via patreon or by purchasing a subscription through in app micro-transactions. With costs for something as simple as having your picture presented in a world costing as much as $100 per month in same cases. If you attempt to go the route of using the non-VR app you'll likely face elitist gatekeeping where map creators do not want "ugly default posing avatars" in their private worlds they charge people to get into, so you'll still not be let in unless you buy a proper headset, and no; they don't mean the cheap ones, unless you're willing to purchase an additional attachment to make it function just like the $1,000 alternatives. Even then you may STILL be kept from the "main" instance if you don't have additional $300+ full body tracking in some cases.
So then, what do you do?
If you want to enjoy the absolute brilliance of VR in the modern era, if you want to see what it's like and experience it before capitalism chokes even more life out of it where are you to turn?
Point 5 - AHOY! WE BE COMMUNIST PIE RATERS ON THIS HERE INTERNET, TAKE YOUR CAPITALISTIC ASS BACK TO YOUR 9-5!
I have never seen such hatred and fear for anything like I have for piracy in the VRChat community.
Now this might largely stem from the idea of "rippers" people who literally rip assets live, this is why a lot of people won't put their worlds up for the public. Because they fear someone will come along and just reupload their world; and I think that's really silly because if you pay attention, it happens and it doesn't change anything because the people who are actually going to publicly available worlds continue to access the same publicly available worlds they've been going to, rather than reuploads. Most people use favorites lists or find a world through a creator, so reuploading the world will only really fool maybe a small handful of new first time users into maybe actually spending some money on a micro-transaction for a reuploaded world. Which can easily be remedied by getting rid of micro-transactions and instead maybe relying on a direct donation system if anything.
People are very up in arms about people ripping avatars and assets; and the reasons for this branch from "that's stealing" to "it's a violation of someone's personal identity!" Which sure, I can understand that somewhat.
So here's the other thing to consider, the majority of models; including "unique models" are actually just pretty simple edits or whatever of existing models.
You may not believe me, so here's a quick example:
Popular Vtuber and Twitch personality Filian!
Great model, absolutely stellar work on this one; and I am not joking, I'm not being sarcastic. Yea, I love Jingo's work... what? You thought Filian made that herself? Oh no wait you likely thought it was commissioned right? Like she had this made specific for her?
Nah she's using a Rindo base!
AND THAT'S NOT A BAD THING!
JINGO is a great avatar maker, and Filian has done some minor edits to the $46 avatar:
Oh huh? Yea no you heard me correctly, Rindo is only $46 USD.
She comes with a few toggles for outfits, she has plenty of blendshapes (and JINGO won't yell at you for adjusting them), she even comes with her own custom emojis and voice clips! Really easy to edit features and tons of clothing that is very affordable you can easily set up using modular avatar.
If you're not a fan of her base, you could use a Moe, or maybe a Selestia base fits you better, or a Kikyo; oh you want a male avatar? Try Minase he's pretty good as a base, he's the male counterpart of the female base; Shinra! All of these base models come complete with everything you need baked right in, or if they do need a shader; it's entirely free for download and the link is provided; the prices for these? Roughly range around $50 entirely affordable, easily editable; you can make your own entirely unique avatar right now using any of these as a base.
"Cryptid I thought you were talking about Rippers! Where's the PIRACY!"
Oh well, do you remember what I said before? When you make something affordable people will still buy it. There's a ton of places where these models are available for download whether or not you wish to buy them from their proper respective shops. However most people I've spoken to admit they go back and purchase the base after making their model with it because "it's affordable, a fair price for what you're getting; and the bases are very good quality!" Couldn't agree more.
But I also say this because if we humor the idea that someone rips Filian's avatar, what do they really get? They get a free Rindo with minor changes. They didn't hurt Filian, they hurt JINGO if anything; and even then "piracy is a victimless crime" applies here as well.
I will say I don't really endorse the idea of ripping things live, but the idea that live ripping is any different than piracy is also a little silly if I'm being honest.
When you build a 10 foot paywall to entry, people are going to build an 11 foot ripping tool to get over it. That IS the internet, and I wouldn't care if there wasn't such a big stink about rippers and piracy in general when it came to VRChat.
There's this idea that if you pirate something you're stealing from a small indie creator uwu and that's bad because now they can afford to eat because you were greedy! Or this concept that by pirating something and using it on your avatar, in a world; even if they'll never know, even if you're only using the models privately, you have in some way violated their privacy and commit identity theft.
As someone who has actually been the victim of identity theft multiple times, let me tell you right now, unless someone uses my avatar to specifically open another 5 Verizon accounts in my name I don't really care.
This is the only time in my life I've seen the internet HATE piracy so fervently and it made me wonder why; until I recognized that the loudest people were in the readmes of those gumroad avatars, the loudest voices weren't the creators of popular bases or models like Rindo, Kikyo, or Selestia; they were people on gumroad who fear monger and spread this message that "if you didn't pay for this avatar I will block you from my discord, ban you from ever accessing my world, and you'll never be able to buy from me again!" Like okay man I'll just go directly to the source you buy everything from get over yourself, guess I won't give you money for another overpriced avatar with awful optimization then.
When I listen to the way people talk about piracy in VRChat it's never seen as a victimless crime, it's never seen as being a normal thing the internet does, it's seen as a vile, evil; horrible soulless act of devilish greed! But they all share a common word that being "my" or "your" when people talk about it they say "yea rippers will reupload YOUR world without any care" or "yea someone took MY asset and reuploaded it on a file sharing site"
It's personal.
"Okay what about you Cryptid wouldn't you be mad if-" No.
Let me make this abundantly clear, if I ever made something for VRChat, an avatar, a world, whatever. I don't care what it is; if I made something and I put it out there on a site for like $5 and then I saw it on a website with someone saying "hey does anyone have this? I want it buy I can't afford it/don't want to pay for it." I am NOT fucking with you, I would simply answer the post myself and say "yea here ya go, if you need any help getting it set up let me know; I made it. If you ever feel like tossing me a donation or tip I'd appreciate it but don't worry if you can't afford it."
BECAUSE THAT'S COMMUNISM BAY-BEE.
I have, in the past; and even now, benefit from piracy. I'm pretty sure most people have. The only way I will ever listen to someone tell me piracy is wrong and bad and evil, is if they have literally NEVER benefit from any form of piracy, communism, or sharing of files and information; and even then I will simply understand that their opinion comes from a place of privilege.
I don't at all find it surprising that most of the people complaining about rippers and pirates come from:
Countries with good economies where they can actually afford shit (such as Norway)
Sites where they're allowed to sell the models at an extreme premium and offer no refund policy.
And that my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg of shit that goes on in Virtual Reality spaces regarding paywalling; gatekeeping, and general capitalistic bullshit.
Remember, piracy is all well and good when it benefits me, but if you want to take what I'm selling for significantly too much money, you're a soulless vile creature and I will make sure everyone knows it!
^ That's sarcasm if anyone out there has the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension.
[āStarting in 1909, Goddard used Binetās test questions to set up three levels of mental retardation based on levels of functionality, each with an equivalent āmental age.ā He coined the term āmoronā for the highest functioning individuals, with imbecile and idiot in the lower tiers. With these changes, American eugenicists turned a designation of functionality that could have led to education into a warning of public danger. āIndeed,ā Noll notes, āit was in the moron classification that the belief in feeble-mindedness as deviance reached its full fruition.ā
Eugenics-friendly researchers in the United States quickly built upon Goddardās work. In 1916, Stanford Universityās Lewis Terman used the test on a much greater number and range of students and added the concept of āintelligence quotient,ā or IQ. This became known as the Stanford-Binet IQ Test. In this way, the IQ test was born to sort and stack mental defectives into three tiers:
Mild (IQ 55ā70)
Moderate to Severe (IQ 25ā55)
Profound (<25)
Moron Educable
Imbecile Trainable
Idiot Profound [untrainable]
With remarkable speed, the well-funded Cold Spring Harbor networks diffused the idea of IQ, the assumption that it could be measured, and the veracity of the Stanford-Binet test. Through the Cold Spring Harbor efforts, eugenics ārocked through academia, becoming an institution virtually overnight,ā as Black explains. By 1914, forty-four of the most reputable universities offered eugenics in their courses of instruction, and high schools soon followed suit.17 By then, eugenics ideas were so widespread as to seem common knowledge. It was an academic coup.
With World War I raging across the globe, President Robert Yerkes of the American Psychological Association seized the day and worked with Goddard and Terman at Goddardās Vineland Laboratory to design army intelligence tests, which the surgeon general rapidly approved. In 1917, the United States army administered two versions of the IQ test to all males entering the military services: an Alpha Test for men literate in English, a Beta Test with pictures for those who were not. The results of the military testing of draftees was alarming: 47.3 percent were graded as feeble-minded, with 50 percent of male southerners scoring as imbeciles. Of ten southern states, Georgia ranked fourth from the bottom. These figures alarmed the military, policy makers, and politicians. In the South, the IQ scores were an impetus for the opening of a flurry of new institutions for the feeble-minded in the 1920s. This This was exactly the eugenicistsā intentāto institutionalize more people as a condition of sterilization, which could more easily occur once the feeble-minded were congregated and segregated, a process that eugenicist Goddard admiringly called ācolonization.ā]
mab segrest, from administrations of lunacy: a story of racism and psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum
6 Reasons Meta is in Trouble (yanked from NYT bc fuck a paywall)
Ā (Italics mine throughout. Full article conāt under the cut but I just want to comment that this is....lol bc basically Meta is buckling due to increased user privacy ability and the fact that ppl can spread their content for free via reels and tiktok. Hilarious how much their entire platform was built on the idea that a) their userbase would always grow (as in, somehow more and more ppl would constantly sign on...fucking how lol) and mining its users for invasive data skimming for ad revenue. Interestingly it says the problem with Reels is that ppl skip Reel ads, making them less lucrative/functional as paid ads but tbh IMO they generate GENUINE interest quite well. No one wants to see a fucking ad. They will see content they like and choose to follow the OP if they want to. But thatās free and Zuck canāt bank on it. The moment we have even a smidgen of a say in what it tracks (bc letās not act like that āopt outā is total), they start tanking. You love to see it. Clap your hands if you want Meta to perish!)
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, suffered its biggest single-day annihilation on Thursday, as its stock fell 26% and its market value fell more than $250 billion.
Its crash followed a dismal earnings report on Wednesday, when chief executive Mark Zuckerberg explained how the company was navigating a delicate transition from social media to the so-called virtual world of the metaverse. On Thursday, a company spokesperson reiterated statements from its earnings announcement and declined to comment further.
Here are six reasons why Meta is in a tough spot.
User growth has reached a ceiling.
The salad days of wild Facebook user growth are over.
Even though the company on Wednesday saw modest gains in new users across its so-called family of apps ā which includes Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp ā its Facebook social networking app lost around half a million users over the past month. fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter.
Itās the first such decline for the company in its 18-year history, during which time it had been virtually defined by its ability to attract more new users. The drop signaled that the main app may have peaked. Metaās quarterly user growth rate was also the slowest in at least three years.
Meta executives pointed to other growth opportunities, such as activating the money tap at WhatsApp, the messaging service that has yet to generate substantial revenue. But these efforts are nascent. Investors are likely to consider next whether Metaās other apps, such as Instagram, might start to peak in user growth.
Appleās changes limit Meta.
Last spring, Apple introduced an āApp Tracking Transparencyā update to its mobile operating system, essentially giving iPhone owners the choice to let apps like Facebook monitor their online activities. These privacy measures have now harmed Metaās business and will likely continue to do so.
Now that Facebook and other apps have to explicitly ask people for permission to track their behavior, many users have opted out. This means less user data for Facebook, which makes ad targeting ā one of the companyās main ways to make money ā more difficult.
Whatās doubly painful is that iPhone users are a far more lucrative market for Facebook advertisers than, say, Android app users. People who use iPhones to access the Internet typically spend more money on products and apps offered to them from mobile ads.
Meta said Wednesday that Appleās changes will cost it $10 billion in revenue over the next year. The company railed against Appleās changes and said they were bad for small businesses that rely on social media advertising to reach customers. But Apple is unlikely to roll back its privacy changes, and Meta shareholders know it.
Google steals online ad share.(lol āstealsā like they own it)
Metaās problems have been the good fortune of its competitors.
On Wednesday, David Wehner, chief financial officer of Meta, noted that as Appleās changes have given advertisers less visibility into user behaviors, many have started shifting their advertising budgets to other platforms. Namely Google.
On Googleās earnings call this week, the company saw record sales, particularly in its e-commerce search advertising. This is the exact same category that tripped up Meta over the last three months of 2021.
Unlike Meta, Google does not rely heavily on Apple for user data. Wehner said it was likely that Google had āsignificantly more third-party data for measurement and optimization purposesā than Metaās advertising platform.
Wehner also pointed to Googleās agreement with Apple to be the default search engine for Appleās Safari browser. This means Googleās search ads tend to appear in more places, collecting more data that can be useful to advertisers. This is a huge problem for Meta in the long run, especially if more advertisers switch to Google search ads.
TikTok and Reels present a conundrum.
For more than a year, Mr. Zuckerberg has pointed out what a formidable enemy TikTok is. The China-backed app has grown to over a billion users thanks to its highly shareable and weirdly addictive short video posts. And itās in fierce competition with Metaās Instagram for eyeballs and attention.
Meta has cloned TikTok with a video product feature called Instagram Reels. Zuckerberg said Wednesday that Reels, which features prominently in usersā Instagram feeds, is currently the main driver of engagement in the app.
The problem is that while Reels attracts users, it doesnāt make money as effectively as other Instagram features like stories and the main feed. Thatās because itās slower to make money from video ads because people tend to skip them. This means that the more Instagram pushes people to use Reels, the less money it can make for those users.
Mr Zuckerberg compared the situation to a similar time several years ago when Instagram introduced its Stories feature, which was a Snapchat clone. This product also didnāt make that much money for the company when it first debuted, although ad dollars eventually followed. Yet, there is no guarantee that Instagram Reels can repeat this magic.
Spending on the metaverse is crazy. (I really hope he blows/blew an irreparable amount of wasted dough on this awful pipedream that everyone hates, and it dies)
Mr. Zuckerberg believes so much that the next generation of the internet is the metaverse ā a still-fuzzy, theoretical concept that involves people moving through different virtual and augmented reality worlds ā that heās willing to spend big on it.
So big that spending was over $10 billion last year. Mr. Zuckerberg expects to spend even more in the future.
However, there is no evidence that the bet will pay off. Unlike Facebookās move to mobile devices in 2012, VR usage is still the domain of niche hobbyists and has yet to really break into the mainstream. Popular augmented reality headsets are also months or even years away. (It is really hard and even nauseating for many ppl to spend too long in VR so honestly I hope thisĀ never takes off and thereās a good chance it canāt, bc real human beings need to use it and it gives them headaches)
Essentially, Mr. Zuckerberg is asking employees, users, and investors to trust him and his vision for the metaverse. Itās a big ask for something that will cost the company billions in years to come and may never come to fruition.
The specter of antitrust hovers.
The threat of regulators in Washington coming for Mr. Zuckerbergās company is a headache that just wonāt go away.
Meta faces multiple investigations, including from a newly aggressive Federal Trade Commission and several state attorneys general, into whether it acted anticompetitively. Lawmakers have also coalesced around congressional efforts to pass antitrust bills.
Mr. Zuckerberg argued that Meta is not a social media monopoly. He furiously pointed to what he calls āunprecedented levels of competitionā, including from TikTok, Apple, Google and other future adversaries. (Boo hoo ;_;)
But the threat of antitrust action has made it harder for Meta to navigate new social media trends. In the past, Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp with little control as these services gained billions of users. Now, even some of Metaās seemingly less controversial acquisitions in virtual reality and GIFs have been challenged by regulators around the world.
With deals being less likely, itās up to Meta to innovate to overcome any challenges.
In the past, Mr. Zuckerberg could have benefited from doubt about his ability to do so. But on Thursday at least, faith was rare on Wall Street.
The post 6 Reasons Meta Is in Trouble appeared first on the New York Times.
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šØNew paper:šØ Morally motivated networked harassment as normative reinforcement. This is the result of 8 yrs of work on harassment & I feel like it's my magnum opus. In this thread I explain this model and credit the scholars who contributed to it.
The model: A member of one community/social network (far-right, fat activists, a fandom) accuses a "target" of violating that network's moral norms ("the accusation"). This triggers moral outrage & justifies harassment by framing the target as deserving it.
Frequently a high-profile person/account amplifies the accusation and their networked audience harasses the target. This reinforces the moral norm and signals network membership. (Eg I reinforce my feminist identity and values by sending nasty messages to a misogynist jerk.)
This is frequently due to context collapse: different communities with widely disparate moral norms are visible to each other on social media.
My research finds that networked harassment is done by all types of communities and people. The left, the right, and communities that aren't partisan (like fandoms or infighting in a community with shared values)
BUT: Individual attributes like race, gender identity, sexuality, religion, etc. function as "attack vectors." (tx T&S participants for that term!) So if I'm Muslim, regardless of what I'm harassed about, I face a bunch of Islamophobic bullshit.
This means that it's /more likely/ that ppl w minoritized/marginalized identities will face harassment, & this is intersectional (e.g. misogynoir)
The impact: people withdraw from public sphere, feel depressed/bad/guilty, moral norm is reinforced and harassers "win"
The key point is that networked harassment is motivated by *moral accusations*. Harassment is virtually always reframed as justified because the target did something immoral.
E.g. I'm not against Anita Sarkeesian because I'm a misogynist/anti-feminist, but because she's a scammer/liar. (She gave a great talk at XOXO festival about this) https://youtu.be/ah8mhDW6Shs
Or I'm not against the 1619 project/Nikole Hannah Jones b/c I'm racist/my white ID is threatened but because she's a liar who hates white people and white children.
B/c moral outrage is really sticky (drawing on MAD model of social contagion by @mollycrockett @william__brady @jayvanbavel) these accusations get people ANGRY and likely to act. https://vanbavellab.hosting.nyu.edu/documents/Brady.etal.2020.PoPS.pdf
Also makes them think their harassment is justified, as we see in this paper on KotakuInAction by @shagunjhaver @asbruckman & larry chan https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/8232/6644 and this paper by @linguangst Tianying Chen @syardi @clifflampe https://www.cybersmile.org/wp-content/uploads/When-Online-Harassment-is-Perceived-as-Justified-ICWSM18.pdf
I worked out some of the ideas in this paper with @robyncaplan, where we analyzed how male supremacist communities constructed "misandry" to reframe "feminism" as a movement to hurt men and boys (and justify harassment) http://www.tiara.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Marwick_Caplan_Drinking-male-tears-language-the-manosphere-and-networked-harassment.pdf
And this paper w/ @beccalew @william_partin about how anti-SJW "response videos" create "blueprints for harassment" by positioning progressive YouTubers as committing moral violations https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764221989781 [preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/veqyj]
I hope this model resonates with scholars and people find it useful!
Also the paper is open access!!! Thank you to @zizip for helping me find such a fitting home for it at Social Media & Society.
Almost everyone who uses the internet is now familiar with the term "Cryptocurrency". Today we're going to look deeper into this asset class and understand its properties.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency that does not rely on any central authority to uphold or maintain it. Instead, transaction and ownership data is stored in a digital ledger using distributed ledger technology, typically a blockchain.Ā This virtual currency is secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit it or double-spend it. Cryptocurrencies enable secure online payments without the use of third-party intermediaries. "Crypto" refers to the various encryption algorithms and cryptographic techniques that safeguard these entries, such as elliptical curve encryption, public-private key pairs, and hashing functions.
Bitcoin has been the most popular and valuable cryptocurrency in the recent times. It was made available to the public in 2009, and it remains the most widely traded and covered cryptocurrency. As of May 2022, there were over 19 million bitcoins in circulation with a total market cap of around $576 billion.Ā
Due to the success of bitcoin, many other cryptocurrencies have been developed in the recent years. Some of these are clones orĀ forksĀ of Bitcoin, while others are new currencies that were built from scratch. They include Solana, Litcoin Ethereum, Cardano, and EOS. By November 2021, the aggregate value of all the cryptocurrencies in existence had reached over $2.1 trillion, of which 41% was contributed by Bitcoin.
Some of the interesting usages of cryptocurrency are as follows-
A censorship-resistant alternative store of wealth: Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin act as a censorship-resistant alternative store of wealth that only the individual with the private keys to the wallet has access to. Hence, no personal Bitcoin wallet can ever be frozen by authorities.
Make private transactions: Cryptocurrencies such as- Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and PIVX (PIVX) enable users to make anonymous financial transactions. This enables users to avoid the hassle of explaining to the bank or other authorities the source of their funds, reasons behind the transaction, and to whom are they paying money.
Rent out your spare hard drive space to the cloud: Decentralized blockchain-based cloud storage solutions such asĀ Storj enable users to earn cryptocurrency in exchange for renting out their hard drive storage space to those who need it on a peer-to-peer basis.
To understand the underlying properties of cryptocurrencies, it is important to have some understanding of the blockchain technology.
Blockchain Technology BlockchainĀ is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. AnĀ assetĀ can be tangible (a house, car, cash, land) or intangible (intellectual property, patents, copyrights, branding). Virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network, reducing risk and cutting costs for all involved. Financial institutions like JP Morgan have been testing the blockchain technology to lower transaction costs.
Hi! I hope youāre feeling better and taking your time to rest! When you have time, could you theorize if thereās a in universe explanation for the D.D.D. to show private conversations between the characters? And if you think that MC also sees/experiences the extra scenes that normally appears in the hard mode? Thanks, and hope you feeling better
Thank you! I'm trying to be somewhat careful as I don't want to delay any of my fic updates but I think I caught it in time. Arm stuff is always annoying!
So I actually have a bit of a newer theory I've been puzzling over...
Obey Me: The Theory of Karasu
Some of this is a theory I've kept tucked away until now as there wasn't really enough information for me to find any conclusions. But three recent developments in the story of the game have joined the dots, and upturned my previous thoughts.
First up, what we already knew.
When the player/MC is first given the DDD, a being called Karasu introduces themself as the "virtual assistant to support your life in the Devildom". As part of this tutorial stage of the game, Karasu announces that the new version of Karasu OS has been installed on the DDD, and a feature has been added calledĀ "Eye See You".
Eye See You is the function that allows the MC/player to see chats they are not a member of, without those in the chat being aware. Karasu mentions that Eye See You isĀ "only meant for a handful of demons", but MC was granted the right to use it. Karasu refers to it as a privilege with the ability toĀ "become the spy you've always wanted to be!"
~~~
Karasu - the Virtual Assistant
The disembodied helper calls himself a virtual assistant, and the operating system that runs on the DDD is called Karasu OS. This means that it is likely the same OS on everyoneās DDDs, giving each user their own Karasu.
However, this isnāt actually confirmed by the game, and in fact there are ZERO mentions of Karasu outwith the player/MC's own DDD experience. Given that the Devildom seems pretty keen on franchises and corporate mascots - including of the company that makes the DDDs - this is somewhat odd.
(Other appearances of crow/raven/feathers are in Akuzon and Devilgram, but these are not named or positioned similarly to Karasu.)
So it could be the case that while the OS is the same across all DDDs, the phones are either not all equipped with the Karasu virtual assistant, or that they have a less helpful version of it. The player/MC's Karasu after all has to step them through some processes unique to the MC (ie Nightmare and Your Tasks which focus on using the demon brothers' powers as protection against lesser demons), as well as explain very basic functions that usual users wouldn't require assistance with.
It is also possible that all of the above is true, with one central Karasu working across every DDD, able to give more assistance to the most vulnerable exchange student and with access to all chats sent through the Karasu OS, making them available for Eye See You users.
Karasu, whether in individual or franchised form, could then be a single being, or a network of such.
These kotengu are commonly known asĀ Karasu-Tengu, because as the name suggests they often appeared as creatures with the attributes of the crow/raven or other fierce and intelligent birds.
Not exactly demons, tengu were long considered the opponents of Buddhism, dedicated to tricking the pious astray, disguising themselves as priests or sexy ladies, and endowing their own worshippers with unholy power. Gradually they became known as the ghosts of the arrogant, and the creatures became strongly associated with vainglory and pride (Lucifer: š).
Over time, a lot of other creatures began to fall under the tengu umbrella, often less troublesome tricksters, and tengu were divided into good and bad tengu. The former were in command of the latter, and the overall mood of the tengu became far less aggressive and malicious. Some people see tengu as beneficial spirits, and they are known for protecting the forests.
But where tengu truly took flight was in pop culture - from the folk tales passed down the generations to manga, anime, and games today, they even get their own emoji! šŗ Crow imagery and symbolism is used a lot, to represent mischief and malice both, while actual Karasu-Tengu are portrayed more sympathetically, either interested in swordsmanship or light mischief.
~~~
Karasu - The Theory
The three key events that have occurred recently that form part of this theory are:
Demons are said to derive their power from the three-legged crow
Diavolo, Barbatos, and Solomon are hiding information from Lucifer
Mammon has the ability to use crows as familiars and spies
In recent lessons we have learned that demons are said to derive their power from the three-legged crow, that the company that makes the DDDs is called Three-Legged Crow, and that the character stickers in the chat app are of the mascots of said company: Red Devil, Nancy, and Blacjak.
Blacjak is a three-legged crow who isĀ "super popular" in the Devildom. (But remember, Karasu, the alleged virtual assistant for the DDD, is unspoken of!)
This brought up many questions about Mammonās (hidden) power, as the second-born demon lord has the crow as his symbolic animal.
As I mentioned in my previous piece, crows were derisively labelled as tricksters in newer religions that painted the birds as unclean, but in older cultures they were venerated for their intelligence - their cunning kept them alive. This partly explains why the legendary three-legged crows and ravens also became synonymous with the sun - the centre of celestial power - and the sun of course is also at the heart of Mammonās demon symbol in the game.Ā
Mammon then not only has a link to the three-legged crow via his symbolic animal, but also through the symbolic sun that is part of how the game presents him.
Back to Eye See You. Karasu tells us that this feature is meant only for a handful of demons. Previously, I assumed that this was likely to be Diavolo, Barbatos, and Lucifer, as the latter certainly always seemed to know of every conversation being had regardless of his presence.
However, recent lessons have shown that this is less likely to be the case. Unless Diavolo, Barbatos and Solomon are keeping their discussions out of chats entirely, Lucifer cannot have the feature Eye See You - or if he does, it is blocked for the chats of those three other characters. Lucifer does not know all that is going on, but this does seem to be a new situation.
Lucifer and Mammon also use the chat to discuss Mammon's findings on what transpired between Diavolo and Solomon. We see no sign of this successful spying being recognised, so it is unlikely that Solomon or Diavolo have access to Eye See You - or if they do, it is blocked for Lucifer's chats.
Iād posit that perhaps Eye See You users can see all chats except those of other Eye See You users buuuuut MC can see all the chats regardless, so that ain't it.
This also had me dig back to find Karasu's specific wording - he doesn't say that only a handful of demons HAVE this feature, he says that the feature isĀ "only meant for a handful of demons". The meaning may well be the same, but it could also mean that nobody else has the feature as it was only meant to be for a handful of demons but never actually pushed through, or that many demons have the feature, despite it only being meant for a handful of them.
And then the third and final piece of the puzzle. Unlike any of his brothers (that we've seen) Mammon has the ability to use his symbolic animal as familiars and spies. Not only does he have this ability but it's one he has already been using, as he already has crows as his familiars - it's possible even that ALL crows are his familiars.
Lucifer requests that he use this ability to gather information on what Diavolo is up to, and Mammon is able to do this with little difficulty. Bear in mind that he was using crows to eavesdrop on a conversation between the demon king-to-be and the most powerful sorcerer ever known. We've seen no hint since that this eavesdropping was noticed, in which case Mammon has a means of gathering information and spying on people that is powerful enough to escape the notice of even the most powerful beings in creation.
Either there is no magic being done to these crows to make them obey, or his own magic is imperceptible. I suspect the former, and that Mammon has the ability to speak with and understand corvids - but that this ability is unknown to anyone else other than Lucifer. And that in itself takes power to conceal, because Diavolo has the ability to know whenever someone is telling the truth or lying.
(This also ties into demonology, in which various forms of Mammon have had connections with crows, regardless of whether he is a demon or not.)
~~~
Tying Everything Together
Okay. So. We've got a virtual assistant on the DDD called Karasu. Karasu has origins as a crow demon. Mammon has the ability to speak with crows and use them as spies that are completely untraceable. The DDDs, and thus the Karasu OS, are made by a conglomerate named Three-Legged Crow. Demons are said to gain their power via the legendary being, the three-legged crow. Mammon is the only demon brother who has not demonstrated their full power.
Mammon is also the demon who is most attached to MC from the very beginning. He is the first to make a pact with them, the first to fly to their defense, and the first to show his feelings. He is the Guardian Demon, and MC is placed under his care in the very first part of the story.
Karasu does some interesting things during the tutorial stages. The first use of the DDD is in seeing Mammonās missed call, and calling him back. Karasu tells us who Mammon is, where he lives, and that he's the second eldest. He also adds,Ā "he is well known for being THE troublemaker of the Devildom. I canāt really recommend him, but oh well..." which fits in with the early treatment of Mammon as being the black sheep of the family.
However, further into the tutorial, Karasu explains that turning on push notifications will alert us whenever we get messages... from Mammon. Obviously, this is true of all the demons, and Karasu uses Mammon as an example, adding thatĀ "Heād be SO sad if you ignored him, thatās for sure."
Well, Mammon as the example for both phone call and chat isn't too strange, right? Karasu then steps us through a ten card pull, in which the rainbow pull will ALWAYS be Mammon's The Mammon Way SSR. When we are shown the Devilgram app, weāre encouraged to view the devilgram in which Mammon is shown to actually be highly intelligent but with trouble focusing.
Then we're directed through a battle, and the surprise guest is... Mammon. Karasu informs us that he has searched for what Mammon likes, so we know exactly what to give him (his fave, Instant Noodles (Hell-Sauce Flavor).
So that's Karasu showing us how to call Mammon, how to chat with Mammon, how to use Nightmare and get Mammon cards, how to view Devilgrams of Mammon, and how to give Mammon his favourite things, all with an explanation of who Mammon is, where he lives, and that he's a troublemaker who would be very sad if you ignored him.
The final thing Karasu shows us is the Eye See You feature.
Now, given that Karasu uses a crow icon, has a name meaning crow, that theĀ Karasu-Tengu is a well known trickster, and that Mammon has the ability to use all crows as his familiars and spies...
And that Karasu specifically mentions Eye See You as allowing the player/MC toĀ "become the spy youāve always wanted to be!", and that when we eavesdrop on Lucifer and Beel early in the game, Mammon is also eavesdropping, and is the only demon who actually commits a full act of spying at Luciferās request...
Would it be crazy to think that Karasu can be influenced by Mammon as well?
While Mammon clearly has the ability to gather information from his crows at any time, it's also fairly evident that he doesn't always do it. But on the other hand, he is the one demon who always has a habit of managing to find exactly where MC is, whether during the story lessons or in events - Mammon has stumbled out of forests, in enchanted gardens, in the middle of shops, all where MC happens to be.
During An Elegant Tea Party, Luke is startled by a large crow watching him, Simeon, and MC enjoy a picnic in the woods. In this case Solomon shoos it off with magic, but it's notable that it's an angel who actually spots it.
Mammon has also made a show of shadowing MC in person at times for their own safety, only to always be caught, despite having the ability to use his crows to actually keep an eye on them. However, this is when MC is with Lucifer, and his big brother is aware of Mammon's familiars.
If Mammon can truly gather info from every crow, and those birds are somewhat revered in the Devildom due to the association with the three-legged crow, his access to information is absolutely limitless. A demon with a nefarious agenda could stage a successful coup with less.Ā
But the one demon we know that never loses control, who has complete mastery of his powers, who hasnāt even shown the true extent of his powers, is Mammon. And perhaps only Mammon could have such a limitless resource at his fingertips and choose (mostly) not to use it. He uses it at Lucifer's request, and he (perhaps) uses it to locate MC to keep them safe. He doesnāt use it for himself, which is a big deal.
Consider how easily he could win any card game with a well positioned crow!
We don't know who owns the Three-Legged Crow conglomerate, and we don't know whether Karasu is truly a widely used platform or unique to MC's DDD. We don't know how widely used or even known about the Eye See You feature is. But if, IF, Karasu is a crow demon, then there is one demon brother who could instruct Karasu to give MC extra perks without anyone else knowing about it, to keep them safe.
~~~
Eye See You
In conclusion then. Eye See You is a VIP feature that was meant to be used by aĀ "handful of demons". Who that handful is we don't know, but given even Diavolo uses a DDD, it has to be a very exclusive list... or a non-existent list, a feature that was never implemented.Ā
(Diavolo also tells MC in the first lesson that he has previously only ever received chat messages from Lucifer, and remember, Diavolo doesn't lie. But that doesn't mean he couldn't be busy reading everyone elseās chats, but again, unlikely given Lucifer and Mammon's conversation.)
So it's quite possible that only MC has this feature, that it is unique to their DDD.
This could be engineered by Diavolo himself, in order to give the most vulnerable exchange student some protection that they don't have via demonic, angelic, or magical power. After all, the king-to-be didn't use chat much before by his own admission, and doesn't seem to use it for any sensitive discussions he might be having.
It could be engineered by Karasu himself, if he is indeed a sentient being, either an actual demon behind the scenes, or a digital demon of some persuasion, deciding of his own volition to install features on MC's phone that didnāt ever get released elsewhere.
It could be engineered by the Three-Legged Crow conglomerate, who we know nothing about.
Or it could be something to do with crows, Karasu, familiars, and Mammon.
