Varinjr

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

Juan Leon had only been running his Twin Cities tow truck business, Leo's Towing, for a few months when he noticed a pattern that kept repeating itself.

Cars were being left behind across the metro area – parked on streets, in parking lots, sometimes for days at a time. The owners were gone, and in many cases, they had been arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Seeing there was a need for someone to help out, help clear the streets and get the people back their vehicles. So we stepped up and started doing it," Leon said.

By late December, Leon and his small towing crew decided to do something about it, all thanks to observers calling in and reporting these vehicles.

"Families reach out to us. If the family isn't reaching out, we'll find a way to get inside the vehicle and we'll bring it back to their house and put it in a safe spot," Leon said.

They began picking up vehicles and returning them to the families of those arrested, free of charge. 

"We're able to do this 24/7, so we don't have to go back to our other jobs," Leon said.

Donations began pouring in all across the country, supporting Leon's cause, but not without a cost to their personal safety.

"When they doxxed me, they put all my information out there," Leon said. "For the last three weeks, we have been getting nothing but death threats."

Leon sends a "chase" car to check out where these abandoned vehicles are located and arranges discreet drop-offs. Since late December, he estimated they have dropped off 250 cars.

The drop-offs are often emotional for the families and Leon's crew.

"All I can do is give them a hug and tell them hopefully things will get better," said Gonzalo Villegas. "Sad isn't even the word to use. It's so much stronger than that."

Despite the emotional strain, the team continues.

"We are going to figure it out day by day if we have to," Leon said.

Leo's Tow actively tries to locate family members on their Facebook page and hosts podcasts recapping their weeks returning vehicles.

🚨 IT'S FEBRUARY. 🚨

⚠️ Which means that Congress is going to be pushing EXTRA HARD to pass the 18 "kids online safety" bills and repealing Section 230!!! It's been mentioned before that they want FEBRUARY to be the month to pass these bills, so we need to start making noise RIGHT NOW.

CALL AND EMAIL YOUR REPS!!! 📣

If you're not from the US, please reblog this and share it around as much as you can!!!

Additional Information:

Here's some petitions too.

This is your semi frequent reminder that there is no official AO3 app

All those are unofficial and available on the Google play store as of August 13th 2025. They mirror AO3's content and insert ads, for which the developer gets paid by page impression (that's every time the ad appears in the fic you're reading) not just clicks.

No money goes to AO3, nor to the fic writer. It goes to the person who did the bare minimum.

Many of these apps have poorly worded or non existent privacy policies, so they may also be mining as much data as possible and selling that on to unknown third parties.

It’s the two-quart Tupperware colander. The handle is large and sturdy but still comfortable to hold in your hand. The ridge on the end helps it fit on any size pot you need to rest it over. The little feet at the bottom let you drain directly into the sink without leaving the contents sitting in a puddle. It’s got a spout on both sides so you can pour comfortably from the left or right hand, towards or away from yourself as needed. The holes are at the bottom so you can control where strained liquids flow, large enough to drain quickly, small enough to keep from losing bits of food through them. The bright yellow colour is easy to spot in the back of a cupboard or dishwasher.

I am passionate about this specific strainer in a way that I am not passionate about anything else in my life. I would run back into a burning building to rescue this strainer. This strainer is my go-to wedding or housewarming gift. This strainer is my beloved family member. I have shared more meals with this strainer than I have with anyone else in my life. This strainer has never, ever let me down. It is the most perfectly designed item I have ever seen or handled in my life. Every aspect of this strainer is made to maximize convenience and functionality. It is flawless, a form of complete and total perfection. If you told me this strainer was the face of God, recreated on Earth in Their image, I would believe you.

If anyone else is inspired to look up the two-quart Tupperware colander, I'll save you a few keystrokes. Amazon has in stock (in several colors, no less). I imagine some other stores do as well.

it's the largest freshwater lake on the planet by surface area, you could lose a couple of smaller countries in there and not even notice. (vs Europe)

on top of that, it's a Northern lake, so the water never really gets warmer than 50 F (10 C) even in the heat of summer, and it's famous for sudden violent storms that destroy ships and buildings alike. this thing has a MASSIVE body count because it's also a major shipping thoroughfare.

And when Bunjy says "the largest by surface are" what that means is: Lake Superior is a whopping 31,700 square miles (82,103 square km) of water. The only reason she is not an inland sea is because she is freshwater.

She has tides. She has rip currents, like an ocean does. You don't even have to go out on a boat to get got by her, all you have to do is step into her icy waters in the wrong spot. She has ice formations that aren't "icebergs" on the technicality that they didn't calve from glaciers, even though they look and act the same.

(photo by Paul Berger)

She LOOKS like an ocean when you are at her shores. This is from a location on the Minnesota side shore.

(photo by George Ilstrup)

What in the everloving F U C K

Yeah, so, AI slop channels are (as we've all seen) on the rise. Producing content by automating as much of the video creation process as possible in order to get money as cynically and flaccidly as possible.

It is, of course, not enough for these channels to coast along on doing basically little more than creating glorified slideshows; they've now taken to attacking other (actual) content creators to bully them and leech revenue.

How do they do this? They abuse YouTube's famously lazy, hands-off copyright claiming system by saying that a piece of media in the video (typically artwork or a footage clip) is theirs. YouTube automatically assumes this is true and copyright strikes the video. The result of this strike varies. If the video is monetised, because the person makes a living from their content, money now goes to the AI channel. Perhaps the video is blocked in certain countries. Perhaps multiple copyright strikes are levied against a creator in succession, to get their channel banned. Perhaps it's simply to inconvenience and stress them while they get the strike overturned.

The whole thing is foul. It's a swarm of talentless hacks who, not satisfied with the revenue they get from doing fuck all, are trying to parasitise from and harm hardworking people, often people who they've stolen information from in the first place for their shitty AI models.

So, then, who are these channels involved in this particular event?

Imperial Iterator is the AI slop channel; a spineless, cynical little cretin who runs their sham of a lore channel through a channel management agency in Los Angeles. They pump out AI-generated scripts in an AI-generated voice whilst taking money from more deserving people. Just constant dogshit content being passed off as media. This person/people are actual trash. Block them, blacklist them, reject them.

Oculus Imperia is... Oculus Imperia. A longstanding, respected and high quality 40k lore channel run by an extremely lovely and hardworking guy. His videos are easy to listen to, thoughtful, and well-researched. Great for both active listening and throwing on when you're doing something. I highly recommend subscribing to him if you haven't already. Like his videos, if you like them. He and his channel are a delight all round.

Because, y’know, that’s what it is!!!