AI isn’t stealing jobs any more than cheap clip art has. The only people who would resort to AI for illustration stopped hiring actual artists ages ago, they buy from shutterstock and the like instead.

The reason artists are pissed id because they used our art to train the AI without our permission. And no, its not the same thing as an artist learning from others, first because of the scale, and second because a student who is learning from other artists isn’t looking to copy an existing style, they’re learning and developing their own. AI just regurgitates what it already knows and attempts to imitate the style of an actual person. It was developed specifically to do that.

If a human being copies the style of another artist rather than develop their own, they’ll be called out too. No one has ever been okay with that, ever.

There aren’t nearly as many right wingers and fascists as social media makes you believe. Speaking as a Mastodon instance admin, every single time we’ve had huge waves of bot and/or troll signups they’ve been very clearly right wing accounts (almost all had similar bios) that almost immediately started interacting with and boosting each other as well as harassing trans and queer people.

The thing about the fediverse is that it can’t be manipulated the way centralized social media can. So what happens is that it gets handled very quickly. They get banned and their instances get defederated so all they can do is shout into the void. They’re not, nor have they ever been, the majority by any stretch of the imagination, and most people have absolutely no desire to hear what they have to say at all.

On top of that, a huge number of them are grifters, and they won’t get any engagement here. They can’t get the kind of viral outrage they need because most people aren’t even seeing their posts.

First of all I want to make it clear that I don’t agree with this defederation, if the models are verified adults then there is no problem.

That said, as a Mastodon instance admin, I wanna explain something to y’all. CSAM is one of those things that you do not want to take your chances with as an admin. Beyond the obvious fact that it’s vile, even having that shit cached on your server can potentially lead to very serious legal trouble. I can see how an admin might choose to defederate because even if right now all models are verified, what if something slips through the cracks (pun not intended, but I’ll roll with it).

My instance defederates a bunch of Japanese artist instances like pawoo because of this. All it takes is one user crossing the line, one AI generated image that looks too real.

Aside from all that, there’s also a lot of pressure being put on many instance admins to outright ban users and defederate instances that post or allow loli/shota artwork as well. You’re quickly labeled a pedophile if you don’t do it. A lot of people consider fake CSAM to be just as bad, so it’s possible that the other admin felt that way.

I’m more lenient on loli/shota as long as it’s not realistic because I understand that it’s a cultural difference and generally speaking Japanese people don’t see it the way we do. I don’t ban stuff just because I think it’s gross, I just don’t look at it.

Anyway what I’m trying to say I guess is that being an admin is hard and there’s a lot of stuff y’all don’t know about so disagree with that person if you want (I do too) but keep in mind that these decisions don’t come easy and nobody likes to defederate.

EDIT: here’s a mastodon thread about the CSAM problem in the fediverse if you’d like to learn more.

Jesus Christ I don’t even let my dog bark during the day. I always bring him inside. What the hell is wrong with people?

Problems you might face: nazis and QAnon. Solution: don’t federate with everything.

I legitimately can’t imagine how awful it must be to be trans in Russia. Well, pretty much anywhere really, now that I think of it. Trans people just can’t catch a break. I feel so bad for them.

I can’t imagine going through life thinking that everything I love and/or desire will send me to hell or whatever. Imagine living in fear because you think someone is watching and judging you. No thanks.

I don’t see any advantage to having any kind of religious faith. Seems like it just limits your options and gives you nothing in return.

Doesn’t matter if you’re using an iPhone or android. They have your number, email, etc. (either given by you or by someone else when they uploaded their contacts to Facebook/instagram/whatsapp) and everything you do is tracked and logged.

That’s the thing about Meta. They gather info from literally billions of people, it doesn’t matter if you personally handed it over or not. Everyone who has your info — name, phone number, email, work number, etc. has probably already shared all or some of it with Meta. The moment you sign up and give them any info at all that matches your info in someone’s contacts, they’ll know it’s you.

If you don’t want them tracking you, your only option is to not use their services and block all their trackers. They’ll have your info anyway, but at least they won’t be able to track your activity.

Edit: a lot of people don’t grasp how bad the situation is with Meta. They trick people into uploading their contacts by requesting access to “help you find your friends” across their services, and they match that info and create a shadow profile for everyone. As soon as you sign up to any of their services, they’ll match that shadow profile to you. That’s why you immediately see people you know even though you just created an account. You’re in their contacts. Facebook has outed countless gay and trans people, as well as sex workers. They will also recommend your therapist’s clients to you as “people you may know” because you all have the therapist’s phone number.

It’s a nightmare. I’ve been trying to make people aware of it for like a decade or something like that. No one listens.

If you’re looking for news, follow some of the accounts here, and there’s a spreadsheet of journalists on mastodon here.

Don’t rely on trending hashtags, it’s not a useful feature on mastodon.

If they had just sherlocked xKit and left the site alone — not adding the live video shit, etc — most users wouldn’t care about the ads. I swear it’s like every social network is just copying each other, remember when everyone added stories because of Snapchat, and how everyone is adding TikTok style videos now? Tumblr’s biggest mistake was doing that, it should’ve just stayed as it was. People are on tumblr because they like tumblr. If they wanted TikTok, they’d download TikTok.

Tumblr was THE place to be for artists. Someone should make a federated alternative.

I’m American, but I’ve lived in several different countries pretty much my whole life.

Culturally, America is a little weird about keeping up appearances no matter the cost. That’s not exclusively an American thing, obviously, but in my experience, we’re the absolute worst at this. People will do absolutely, wildly insane and irresponsible shit to make sure they look like they have their shit together, including getting into debt. Again, I know this all happens overseas too, but everything is louder, flashier, bigger here, and so is this.

One of the biggest cultural problems that we have is the deeply ingrained idea that poverty is the result of poor choices, stupidity, etc. — and when I say “deeply ingrained”, I mean deeply ingrained. Most people don’t even realize that they feel that way, and even people who are poor through absolutely no fault of their own may believe deep down that it is their fault and they’re worthless or stupid etc. Once again, the idea that people are poor because they make bad choices is not uniquely American by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s orders of magnitude more deeply ingrained and pervasive here, so much so that just looking like you’re poor in can ruin your chances in life.

What does that have to do with teeth? Well, they’re an indicator of socioeconomic status here. I have a snaggle tooth that I’m only self-conscious about when I’m here. People notice, they will literally avert their eyes when they see it, and I instinctively hide it to the point of avoiding smiling altogether. When I’m in Japan, or Ireland (or really anywhere in Europe), not only do I not feel self-conscious at all, but it’s not hard to find other snaggle-toothed people, all smiling without a care in the world. As long as your teeth aren’t rotten or something, nobody seems to care.

Every time I’ve been to the dentist in the US, they’ve mentioned that tooth like it’s a problem that needs to be corrected, even though there’s nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it’s not straight like my other teeth. They offer braces, extractions, all kinds of shit. I keep my mouth very clean and I’ve never had a cavity in my life (I’m 42), I just have this one weird lil tooth.

When I go to the dentist overseas, they never really bring it up. They check my teeth for cavities etc. compliment my oral health, and send me on my way. The only time a non-American dentist brought it up was when he asked if it was hurting my upper lip or anything of that nature. No one outside the US ever treated it like it was a health issue that needed correction or offered me unsolicited advice for correcting it. (Disclaimer: a snaggle tooth CAN cause health problems if it makes it difficult to clean your mouth etc, but mine doesn’t — please don’t use my words as an excuse not to address issues that may be damaging your oral health).

TLDR: anything other than perfectly straight teeth makes Americans think you’re poor and being poor means you’re lazy/dumb/whatever therefore you must fix it regardless of cost. So it’s a huge industry here.

Frankly, I think they’re being laughably naive >.<

The creator of Mastodon went to some kind of Meta round table meeting (couldn’t find the original thread, here’s someone declining the offer), so it’s entirely possible that he was told a bunch of lies and believed them.

That said, Meta is going to pay the admins of whatever instances Threads decides to federate with, and they’ve said that’ll be the biggest instances, which… well, that’s mastodon.social, by far the biggest Mastodon instance. So, I don’t know. I don’t have any reason to believe that he’s a bad person, but what kind of money are we talking about here? No one is immune to that kind of temptation.

I dunno, this whole situation has a weird vibe.