WhatsApp used to cost money until then Facebook bought it.

Which is it?

Out of interest, why do you need a whole app for that? What does it do that you couldn’t do on search?

I agree with you. I think it’s a bot and thus should be banned, as per the rules.

Just block and move on is okay for trolls and sock puppets. I don’t think that’s a good strategy for bots. You don’t see them any more but they keep posting using bandwidth. They’re building up a profile with engagement that will make it harder to get banned down the line when they start using the account for something worse.

For your own mental health, I would suggest you stop living in this sub.

It is a bugbear for some, irregardless of when the first example was documented. Loose/lose has the potential to be such an annoyance. For some people.

The word “new” can carry a connotation of “recent” but it more literally implies “the latest version.” For all intensive purposes, I did not mean to imply the controversy about the metaphorical use of “literally” was a recent development.

This will literally be the new literally, I guess.

Spelling conventions have taken quite a hit in the age of automated subtitles. We’re devolving to the 1600s where this was more vibe based. I think there is also an element of wanting to show human frailty in content so no one suspects you of pushing slop.

Whether you like it or not, you have to abide by local laws. You can’t go to Pyongyang and exercise your first amendment rights either. The guy was warned and did this out of spite. Actions have consequences. Whether he just thought he was above the culture and norms as a tourist or whether he wanted to be a martyr for affected tourists everywhere really doesn’t matter. And his fate doesn’t infuriate me at all.

That being said the punishment itself is Draconian and not just mildly infuriating.

The Scunthorpe problem strikes again.

How is this mildly infuriating? If this Weekend at Bernie’s vibe turns out to be true, that wouldn’t be mildly infuriating. If it’s the story of an evil politician clinging to life like dog shit to your sneakers, it also isn’t just mildly infuriating. And if it is the story of an old man surely not long for this world, this isn’t infuriating at all.

Could it be the books are wrapped to protect against humidity? This may not be the whole reason why they do it but it wouldn’t be the worst one.

I kind of expect this sort of hidden ad shenanigans these days. Which I shouldn’t, of course. But as a result I find it more infuriating to have a link to the “article” next to the already opened very same “article.” Come on, algorithm! That’s just unforgivable.

Yes, I did hear that before.

Eff me, that wasn’t intended!

I am conflicted here. On the one hand, I agree that subtitles would have been nice. On the other hand, I think folks with hearing disabilities get shut out of other content so much that I don’t think this somewhat solitary case makes it good mildly infuriating material. It’s most likely just an oversight. Much less likely a clever scheme to highlight ableism.

This is a problem of their own making having started off so lenient with account usage. In the end, it’s their house and their rules though. Deal with it or set your sails.

I don’t disagree with your opinion that war is newsworthy in general. Off the top of my head I can think of several reasons why you don’t see the stories you expect to see though. Chief among them the fact that search on the fediverse is absolutely unreliable. It ain’t Google when it was still good. Also, other news outlets may have different standards in terms of what they can report. They may need more sources, more eye witnesses. A search for “Iran” may be the wrong search term because there is a certain US politician who loves a headline and the media kind of like him for that. So there is a spam of stories about his unsuccessful deal making that will algorithmically obscure any other Iran content online. Or it might relegate military strikes by other but much smaller nations to a subordinate clause in paragraph #13 of a story with an orange headline. It also stands to reason that local news sources would be better, especially if this is a developing story, and that it’s possible that it simply hasn’t filtered through to English language media.

And more generally, war or senseless loss of life in general and the reporting thereof are not mildly infuriating content.

You are making this up.

I don’t think I am. I was in at least two threads where people just referred to them as Nazis and in a stage of outrage weren’t open to other interpretations. However, my post can be taken as all users who got mad called them Nazis. Some got mad and didn’t call them Nazis. That’s why I said assholes are still assholes.

It is mathematically correct to say that a portion of the energy I may contribute to Mullvad will end up financing fascism.

It’s mathematically correct to say a portion of your fees in the past may have ended up in the coffers of the Örebro Party. It seems likely that continuing payments to the company may filter through Daniel to them as well. Facism is traditionally associated with right-wing extremism. This party is a Frankenstein monster of traditional associations and they lean further to the left than to the right, except on immigration. With “remigration” as the de rigeur pipe dream corner stone. Xenophobia alone doesn’t fascism make. The Soviet Union wasn’t exactly a hit destination for immigrants. So we either enlarge the definition of fascism to include these horseshoe loonies. Or we need a new word. Or we just agree to call them assholes and any continuing payments to Mullvad carry a mathematical risk of further financing assholes, more than one.

Daniel is one of the founders of Mullvad and part owner. He took a big chunk of change from his private wealth and donated it to a horseshoe loonie party. Horseshoe because they try to marry ideas from the extreme left to immigrant hateful ideas from the extreme right. Loonie is self explanatory. His donation made it possible for that party to run a nationwide campaign.

Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly. Which isn’t true. How much of this donation truly came from VPN fees is also a matter of debate. They aren’t strictly Nazis, more xenophobic communists. But assholes are still assholes and people choose labels differently. There is a lot of kneejerk reacting going on.

The company seems to want to ride it out. They correctly point to this being a decision by a private citizen who may exercise his free speech by donating to the loonie party. But they either don’t recognize the PR hell of being guilty by association as a company or they know the subscription drain isn’t as bad as the online outrage makes it look like. They publicly say this is all about free speech, which is their DNA, yada yada yada.

If you want something European, I’d throw AirVPN in the mix. I went there and never to Mullvad. And now I’m glad I didn’t and at the same time I’m looking forward to hearing inevitably what corpses my current provider has in the cupboard.

I dislike Proton, which I quit after the CEO praised 47 on his big tech regulation and before they handed the email account of some environmental activist over to the authorities, in France IIRC. They want to be your replacement for Google and keep pushing more services at obscure subscription levels at you. In terms of VPN, they were good though.