World News

Think of the Children?

Australia is going to look away from the porn you're watching. Also, Elon Musk wants your biometrics for vague reasons, Texas is continuing their streak of being absolute dogshit for human rights, Instagram may be messing with their Reels format, and a Confederate general that was a "huge mistake".

Endeavorance

Sep 1, 2023 — 4 min read

Australia Wont Watch You Watch Porn (Yet)

Contrasting what some states in the US (as well as the good ol' UK) are doing, Australia has decided to not move forward with centralized age verification protocols for pornography online, citing that any attempt at collecting and validating identity leads to, and I believe this is the legal term, "hella privacy bullshit"

Instead, the Australian government will be allocating money and resources towards improving guidelines for parental education of minors as well as helping parents to understand how they can work with their child directly or via filtering software to mitigate the potential for exposure to harmful material. They're also planning to expand resources for "age-appropriate, evidence-based respectful relationships education." WHAT A CONCEPT.

Elon Musk Wants Your Biometrics Now

X/Twitter has updated their Privacy Policy to state that they may "collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes" as well as "your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement."

The claim of needing your biometrics for security is concerning, largely because that's not something that individual apps/networks tend to do. Stuff like FaceID or fingerprint scanning happen (typically) on locked-down secure hardware in your actual device, not through an app. Even when you use FaceID or a fingerprint scan in an app, it's actually handled by your phone and they app is just given a "go ahead" or "hold up" based on the result of what your phone scanned.

As for job data, I guess they wanna get into like the market currently occupied by LinkedIn? Or something??

Either way, Elon Musk does not need your biometric data and I do not give a shit what reason is provided. This is weird. Social networks do not need to collect biometric data. ESPECIALLY social networks run by people with weird aspirations for saving the world through bioengineering and whatnot (or, more plainly, eugenics. Warning: deep rabbit hole.)

Totally Normal Texas Stuff

The Texas Supreme Court—which is entirely Republicans—has passed a decision to allow a bill to become law in the state which will ban gender-affirming care for minors in Texas, including a requirement for people on HRT/Puberty blockers to cease their treatment despite the medical recommendation of doctors.

This is another in a long line of Republicans showing us their entire ass and reminding us that they would prefer to make medical decisions on our behalf, rather than letting people live their lives and seek medical help as they see fit. Of course, we're all aware of that common saying: it's between you, your doctor, and Jonathan Covey (the director of Texas Values, an authoritarian conservative group pushing for such laws to take effect).

As a reminder, Trans kids are few and far between. Cases where Trans youths are prescribed medication for their dysphoria are exceedingly rare in the grand scheme of "pharmacological approaches to medical conditions in minors," and the only reason we're doing this shit is because they have locked in on the Trans community as an easy target to "otherize," not because anyone was actually having a problem.

Pediatric medical experts are anxious that Trans kids will resort to self harm or suicide if not able to receive the treatment they seek. That is what we're talking about when we talk about "life saving care." This is what we're talking about when we say Trans Genocide. The power of the law—which as a reminder is enforced with violence—being used to force people to live their lives by the myopic framework of the few in power. Step out of their closely guarded line and you risk legal or mortal peril.

Republicans would prefer that children die rather than receive medical care that they (who are grown-ass adults) scared of.

Trans rights are human rights.

Instagram Might Allow Longer Reels

This is not a very pressing story but dear reader, I Am Mad.

So I'm a content creator now I guess, right? And I got my start and do a lot of work in the short-form vertical video space. I do plenty of other stuff, but I'm in that space a lot.

Here is the state of play:

TikTok videos tend to be at most 3 minutes long. After that, the algorithm gets wacky
Instagram Reels cap out at 1 minute, 30 seconds. If you go beyond that, its still technically a Reel, but it does not go into their equivalent of the FYP
YouTube Shorts maxes out at 60 seconds
TikTok now monetizes specifically video longer than 60 seconds, presumably to get creators to stay off of YouTube Shorts
Instagram basically killed monetization of Reels
YouTube Shorts is (imo) half-baked still

So shit is just a mess. That said Instagram may soon be experimenting with allowing Reels to be 3 or even 10 minutes long, directly matching what TikTok has been up to recently. As a creator, that would be a huge relief, because right now if you want to be cross-platform, you essentially are stuck having to make multiple copies of the same video at different lengths for each network, while they all are trying to cannibalize the exact same userbase.

Anyway, like I said. Not a pressing story. But I'm mad.

On This day…

On this day in 1864 during the American Civil War, Confederate general John Bell Hood called for an evacuation of Atlanda, Georgia after a months-long seige on the city by Union troops, lead by General Sherman.

General Sherman had a "stop at nothing to win" kind of vibe, while a historian referred to the appointment of John Bell Hood to his position of power as "probably the single largest mistake that either government made during the war".

Fuckin YIKES bro