What it says on the tin.
Random thread of whatever
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You’re wrong, Dave. Absolutely wrong. As wrong as wrong can be.
Jerry, we have a specific thread for Red Dwarf quotes. Please stay on topic.
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That’s kind of interesting, I don’t know if dance routines can be copyrighted. If you look at old video clips I guess everybody stole everybody else’s moves. But why not, if somebody is making money from your creativity, I guess there are grounds for sueing them.
Yes, dance can be copyrighted. It’s explicit in the UK copyright Acts, and I guess therefore in other countries too. And to copyright a dance move, all you have to do is document it — which means record it on video. As soon as you do that, any original moves automatically become your copyright and your property. Even if you then put the film on public display, the moves still belong to you and only you. So these toc-tok copyists are in clear breach of (at least UK) law. Just as much as somebody who photocopies a comic and presents it as their own.
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You’re wrong, Dave. Absolutely wrong. As wrong as wrong can be.
Jerry, we have a specific thread for Red Dwarf quotes. Please stay on topic.
Can we introduce some new forum code so that you can ‘like’ a post more than once?
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My feeling is that the random thread is the only one that by definition can’t ever be derailed
Well… random implies a different subject every few postings in a scroll. If there is consistency and a subject is maintained for a few pages, then it ceases to become random. Therefore, it would be a derailment/deviation from randomness.
—–What is this not knowing a topic at all (or very little) and still an insistence on arguing tooth and nail about it?
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As for clothing, I would say that the gatekeeping of what is proper to wear should be done by the main people of the culture.
Is that solely if it’s a minority? Is it solely culture or race. The issue then is which part is gatekeeping because we’ve clearly seen contrasting views within an ethnic group. What if one Asian American thinks it’s fine and another doesn’t.
Do you have permission to wear a beret from a Frenchman? The miniskirt was invented by Mary Quant as a strong symbol of swinging London, should the British be asked in that case? Yes I get the argument they are from a white privilege position but one way cultural exchange seems a strange state of affairs. Music and food are generally seen as equals culturally, does that mean you need to ask permission to cook egg fried rice?
Now it is extra information if this girl was doing the ‘eye’ gestures, that is clearly racist and unacceptable but the cheongsam is a flattering dress for slim women so wearing it needs in no way to be mockery but rather admiring a classic design. Like I say I don’t deny the concept of cultural appropriation. That is when it is used to denigrate, mock or steal something without attribution for it’s original source.
That is the case with Led Zeppelin, that’s the case with the Washington Redskins, that’s the case probably with the Tik-Tok thing and I only say probably as it’s not something I know much about. They are all wrong and should be called out as such.
Lack of attribution is also something that blurs outside race and culture. How many people know who Gregory Coleman is? The man behind practically every hip hop and drum and bass song of the 80s and 90s but died homeless. Nobody in those scenes championed where they got his drum break from.
My issue is some of your examples are so broad I don’t even know if they can practically be done another way. I don’t know if I can undo that my favourite genre of music is house (which originated in black discos in Chicago when I was not yet a teen), that if I were to make a record that’s what I’d want to make, just as Prince wanted to make rock as that’s what the FM radio played in Minneapolis. Just as Eminem and the Beastie Boys wanted to make hip-hip as that was the culture around them at the time.
The cultures we are raised in thankfully aren’t segregated, the first music I listened to in the early 80s was ska based made by multi-racial bands, I ate curries made by my Indian neighbours, I watched TV and film from every background. So I cant say what is my ‘white culture’ or that it remains the same and isn’t continuously adapting. I don’t know which gatekeeper to ask if I can respectfully indulge in any of these things it was always fine to before.
Essentially, as in a lot of things nowadays, there seems to be ‘scope creep’ on what is a genuine issue. I fully support political correctness but I don’t people with good intention and actions being cancelled for once using some clumsy language. That’s taking the concept too far and I think as importantly often targeting the wrong people.
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As for TikTok vs Vine, you can Google that whole situation and come to your own conclusion.
Google appropriated Ask Jeeves, I wouldn’t trust them as a neutral source.
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That was an example where I said I didn’t know enough about skating to know whether the judges scored the skaters correctly, but acknowledged that with these subjectively-marked artistic sports there is always the potential for bias to creep in, as opposed to a more objective sport where a clear metric (height, time, weight, distance etc.) decides the winner.
In what way is that “gaslighting and deflecting”?
I feel as though you have a tendency to take every race-based clickbait controversy at face value and not actually interrogate whether it’s as clear-cut an example of racism as it’s being painted as.
Outrage drives views for online news like this, and outlets know that presenting a story as a clear race-base injustice is going to get a reaction from people. But I think it’s our duty as readers to ask questions about some of these stories ourselves rather than necessarily taking them at face value. Even if that means concluding that you don’t have enough information to know for sure.
Being more than willing to give the judges the benefit of the doubt. What more could that skater have done? The gold went to someone else who did far less and took no chances. It is still a controversial call to this day….
I don’t have a tendency to race bait here or anywhere. Highlighting what is unfair or an injustice… YES
Still, it is good to know that you are for critical thinking… I am all for it myself.You said you would like for me to bring up things here to discuss… Ok then.
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Gareth… So you found some of my examples broad, and could go either way? Probably. It was just to bring out the difference of the two terms used ad infinitum.
I feel it was good to bring in the TikTok dance controversy. The issue has so much more of an impact in the US given the history, pattern, cycle, etc.
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Gareth… So you found some of my examples broad, and could go either way?
I wouldn’t exactly put it that way. It’s not so much ‘either way’ as analysing what we want to achieve here.
Yes I am a white guy but my family all are not. Similarly to Jerry as we all met in the pub that time. I’m very aware of inherent prejudice and bias and want that tackled, I know my children will have challenges, but we have to be careful about extending that into an exclusionary society. The US is an incredible country but it doesn’t always do everything right and I think in some aspects, not all, it is doing this wrong. They use ‘holidays’ instead of Christmas to avoid potentially offending Jews when the better solution is to celebrate both.
I was reading about the introduction of separate black and white graduation ceremonies at universities. To me that’s a retrograde step. If there is something about the traditional American ceremony that doesn’t work for black students that needs to be fixed – not ditched and split off.
In truth I don’t in my life have a choice to segregate things by race or culture. Increasingly, and rapidly fuelled by the internet, these cultures mix and as much as some would like it that is an irreversible trend.
So if someone is denigrating, mocking or stealing things without attribution I am 100% there. If we’re just picking at technicalities to get internet points then fuck that.
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The truth is that when you bring these topics up I am genuinely interested in your thoughts, and (coming as I do from a background where debate and disagreement is usually seen as pretty healthy and desirable) I think a discussion is the best way to test these ideas.
Cool…
Here are some things in a listing. Hope this is not too much…
1. Some people ask you in their small talk “What do you do for a living? or “Where do you live?” in order to calculate how much respect to give you.
2. In some job interviews, the interviewer, aside from asking the standard questions will do a little name dropping and mentioning places and institutions. If the candidate knows about them, they are then seen as a “good fit” for the office culture. That is their form of office gatekeeping.
3. In the mid 70’s, a black woman in Chicago applied for welfare under a few different names. Ronald Reagan got the story and ran with it, exaggerating it in his 1976 Presidential campaign as the “Queen of Welfare”. That is basically how the story or trope of blacks being on welfare started, even though more white households are on the welfare rolls and government assistance programs than black.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen
4. There are more poor white households than black yet the white households mostly vote red and are against expanding government programs (Hating “Obamacare”). Why is that? Partly because they know that more social programs are not exclusive to them. It would also help minority households, and it is part of white supremacy ideology not to help or assist. It is like biting one part of the body to spite the other part.
5. The Texas abortion ban: Those who insist on “pro life, the sanctity of life” are also against programs expanding on prenatal care, adoption programs, safe sex being taught, etc. Also, no gun ban or control as it would impede on their rights. Yet with women’s bodies… you get the point.
6. With that ban, many white women referred to the “Handmaids Tale” a fictional story of white women victims, rather than go to the actual plight of what women of color went through for decades in real life.
7. White women were shocked by the ban, yet it was said that they never really did embrace what the women of color have been going through, partly because doing so would have jeopardized their being #2 behind white males in society. Never did think that the Patriarchy would turn on them…. Incidentally, some of the findings of the latest census actually has the white population rate going down and supposedly whites will actually be in the minority by 2050.
8. For those who get upset over a harsh sentence a black man like R. Kelly would get and highlight a white man like a Woody Allen. Part of it is about injustice, but the other part of their sense of “equality” is for a black man to get away with a crime like a white man does.
9. The US police force is pretty much and outgrowth of the deputized search groups and parties in the Old South that were organized to recapture runaway slaves. In the Western area, law enforcement and the Texas Rangers were there to clear out the land of Native Americans, making it “safe” for white frontier settlers.
10. Years ago, I asked about spanking a child as a form of discipline. A few responded and Ohara asked me to drop it. It turns out that spanking for the most part in the US black community (especially down South, where parents take a flexible branch from a tree to practically flog a child) is a holdover and legacy of the slavery whippings passed down to this day.
11. Some want to insult me by saying “That is why you are single” as if to say that I am in this lineup of sorts with others and am begging to get picked or chosen with no say whatsoever, no power to choose and pick someone for myself…
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With that ban, many white women referred to the “Handmaids Tale” a fictional story of white women victims, rather than go to the actual plight of what women of color went through for decades in real life.
One of the things that Margaret Atwood always emphasised about The Handmaid’s Tale was that while it was a fictional story in a made-up setting, every single violation and offence suffered by women in the book was rooted in real-life practices that saw women from all variety of backgrounds mistreated in a wide variety of different contexts.
Her fictional presentation was able to cut through that detail and provide a universal and accessible story that made it clear why these practices were unacceptable and present it in a way that connected with people.
Yes, you might find it strange that a fictional story resonates with people in a way that real-life examples don’t, but that’s true of a lot of fiction that is able to cast light on real-world issues.
As for The Handmaid’s Tale being only about white women victims, from memory I think it’s true that in the original book the handmaids are all white, as Atwood has Gilead adopt racist (as well as sexist) policies that involve relocating black people and putting them to work in colonies of some sort (I’m hazy on the details as it’s been a while). But in the TV series, which seems to be what has really caught the public imagination in recent years, I’m pretty sure that some of the victims of the abuse are black as well as white and society hasn’t been segregated along racial lines in the same way as in the book.
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1. Some people ask you in their small talk “What do you do for a living? or “Where do you live?” in order to calculate how much respect to give you.
Is that rooted in reality though or is that how you think they look at you? Maybe they are just showing interest in you, and it is not necessarily to increase or reduce the respect they feel they owe you.
I get asked this sometimes, and since I am unemployed it can be a bit difficult to explain my situation, but I rarely feel judged for it. Some people are assholes, maybe some people do judge you for it, but you can just ignore those people.
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My sister just shared this on Facebook (the story is from 8th September I think). I’m sure Al knows this, but for the rest of us who have no clue about about racial politics…
Today is Ruby Bridges’ 67th birthday…
At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.
Born on September 8, 1954, Bridges was the oldest of five children for Lucille and Abon Bridges, farmers in Tylertown, Mississippi. When Ruby was two years old, her parents moved their family to New Orleans, Louisiana in search of better work opportunities. Ruby’s birth year coincided with the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, which ended racial segregation in public schools.
Nonetheless, southern states continued to resist integration, and in 1959, Ruby attended a segregated New Orleans kindergarten. A year later, however, a federal court ordered Louisiana to desegregate. The school district created entrance exams for African American students to see whether they could compete academically at the all-white school. Ruby and five other students passed the exam.
Her parents were torn about whether to let her attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School, a few blocks from their home. Her father resisted, fearing for his daughter’s safety; her mother, however, wanted Ruby to have the educational opportunities that her parents had been denied. Meanwhile, the school district dragged its feet, delaying her admittance until November 14. Two of the other students decided not to leave their school at all; the other three were sent to the all-white McDonough Elementary School.
Ruby and her mother were escorted by four federal marshals to the school every day that year. She walked past crowds screaming vicious slurs at her. Undeterred, she later said she only became frightened when she saw a woman holding a black baby doll in a coffin. She spent her first day in the principal’s office due to the chaos created as angry white parents pulled their children from school. Ardent segregationists withdrew their children permanently. Barbara Henry, a white Boston native, was the only teacher willing to accept Ruby, and all year, she was a class of one. Ruby ate lunch alone and sometimes played with her teacher at recess, but she never missed a day of school that year.
While some families supported her bravery—and some northerners sent money to aid her family—others protested throughout the city. The Bridges family suffered for their courage: Abon lost his job, and grocery stores refused to sell to Lucille. Her share-cropping grandparents were evicted from the farm where they had lived for a quarter-century. Over time, other African American students enrolled; many years later, Ruby’s four nieces would also attend. In 1964, artist Norman Rockwell celebrated her courage with a painting of that first day entitled, “The Problem We All Live With.”
Ruby graduated from a desegregated high school, became a travel agent, married and had four sons. She was reunited with her first teacher, Henry, in the mid 1990s, and for a time the pair did speaking engagements together. Ruby later wrote about her early experiences in two books and received the Carter G. Woodson Book Award.
A lifelong activist for racial equality, in 1999, Ruby established The Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and create change through education. In 2000, she was made an honorary deputy marshal in a ceremony in Washington, DC.
(above by Debra Michals, PhD | 2015)
Happy birthday Ruby x
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Ruby and her mother were escorted by four federal marshals to the school every day that year. She walked past crowds screaming vicious slurs at her.
I’ve seen photos of this, it’s harrowing.
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Thing is, some of those who viciously yelled at her are still alive. It is similar to Coralyn Bryant still being alive, the white woman who lied and got Emmit Till lynched.
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Yes I am a white guy but my family all are not. Similarly to Jerry as we all met in the pub that time. I’m very aware of inherent prejudice and bias and want that tackled,
It is true of how someone with the minority look and label has to be careful in navigating through society. Years ago, I posted a Twitter picture of a black woman in a restaurant in Europe and the background had everyone staring at her. That is very true. There are countries, neighborhoods, etc. where a minority has to watch their step. I was down South in Daytona Florida for a week and got a few intrusive stares there.
Historically in America, black travelers had to develop backup plans and alternative routes to avoid the nastiness they would get not just from the police. There were communities called “sundown towns” meaning the people would tolerate a few blacks passing through or whatever in the daytime, but after sundown…Forget it.
Chadwick Boseman once said about the time when his family lived down South of the slurs they would get and how one time some tried to drive them off the road.
Even in Northern cities to this day, there are segregated neighborhoods with a borderline street which you can’t really cross, something like in the movie “ A Bronx Tale”. Howard Beach and Bensonhurst in NYC are other examples.
In the news, there is growing concern about Portland Oregon, where groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are and it could be where the next major race riot occurs. I am not going there anytime soon.
Needless to say, if you think that racism has been dealt with because of the 60s civil rights movement, MLK, Obama, think again.
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Yes I am a white guy but my family all are not.
I have had to deal with this as well. My Sister in law is a minority and they have 3 boys who look more like her than my brother. She is a mix part Hispanic and part native. It has happened before that they are questioned. I get indignant and simply say “They are with me”. Skin Color has never really registered with me so sometimes I forget how they are perceived in “my world”(upper class white society). My nephews have the same blood running through them that I do but their outer layer is different so they are treated different and I wish I could change that.
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Yes I am a white guy but my family all are not.
I have had to deal with this as well. My Sister in law is a minority and they have 3 boys who look more like her than my brother. She is a mix part Hispanic and part native. It has happened before that they are questioned. I get indignant and simply say “They are with me”. Skin Color has never really registered with me so sometimes I forget how they are perceived in “my world”(upper class white society). My nephews have the same blood running through them that I do but their outer layer is different so they are treated different and I wish I could change that.
Christel is Hispanic and she will have me make store returns for her because as she says, “you’re white and they won’t hassle you”.
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Why immediately like a reflex make an analogy to fiction instead of the actual real life plight of women of color? Why that bypassing? Why that whole mentality of ignoring and bypassing them?
I think because these fictions become a lot more universal and recognisable as a shorthand reference for something like this, moreso than most real-life examples, as odd as it seems.
Handmaid’s Tale is popular and well-known at the moment with the success of the TV series, and most people – even those who don’t watch it and haven’t read the book – will have some knowledge of what it means or refers to. I doubt you’d find as many people who know about a given specific real-life injustice in that area.
It’s not that uncommon a phenomenon I don’t think – talk about the Titanic and a lot of people will probably think of Leo and Kate Winslet, talk about detectives catching villains and a lot of people might think of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, or even Batman and the Joker, before they could identify the people who brought famous real-life killers to justice.
Fiction has a way of capturing our imaginations and providing universal touchstones for things like this.
And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing if it helps to raise awareness and understanding of an important issue, and provide some kind of accessible reference point.
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I posted a Twitter picture of a black woman in a restaurant in Europe and the background had everyone staring at her.
This one can be nuanced. Yes it very much could be racism/distrust but also just being out of the norm.
I’m in maybe a unique scenario on this board of being white and in an ethnic minority, while that very rarely affects me adversely and sometimes positively (I can get extra attention in places as they think I am either rich or a tourist and they want to impress) boy do I get noticed. Anonymity is impossible.
Penang is a pretty big and cosmopolitan island and a tourist destination but Audrey comes from a smaller town an hour away that is off that path. We were invited to a wedding there and when I walked in you’d think I was Tom Cruise, every head turning to me. I went in once to a gas/petrol station next to her parents house and bought an ice cream, went in 2 days later and they asked ‘would you like the ice cream again?’. They remembered me even though I did nothing remarkable just because I looked different to all their other customers.
It can depend in Europe too, as it probably does in the US. London and Paris are huge multicultural melting pots, you see every ethnicity and hear 20 languages a day. They are more similar to New York than other parts of the US are to it. Eastern Europe, split off by the iron curtain for so long, has a huge problem in football matches of overt racism you would not find on anywhere near that scale in the UK or France.
You go to super rural areas and even if someone is as pure minded and liberal as they come if you turn up they will stare because it is just unusual to see.
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It can depend in Europe too, as it probably does in the US. London and Paris are huge multicultural melting pots, you see every ethnicity and hear 20 languages a day. They are more similar to New York than other parts of the US are to it.
You go to super rural areas and even if someone is as pure minded and liberal as they come if you turn up they will stare because it is just unusual.
Not just rural. Newcastle is a reasonably big city (close to a million people in the Tyneside conurbation) and I wouldn’t expect to see a black face if I went into town. Though I can’t imagine anyone actually staring, because, you know, we all know about black people even if we never see one in an average week, it’s not like seeing a Martian
Indian and Chinese faces are more common here, but for whatever historical reason, black Africans and West Indians never made it here in significant numbers.
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Al, I saw this and thought of you and your discussions:
Fed up with TikTok, Black creators are moving on
Long before he joined TikTok, Charles Conley loved superheroes.
Growing up, Batman was his favorite among many. But one thing always bothered him about the comics and blockbusters he devoured: “When it came to people of color, we got relegated to the background.”
As a Black man, that sense of exclusion was part of what led Conley to get involved with cosplay, or creating and wearing fictional characters’ costumes. He eventually joined TikTok in October 2020 to show off his creations and discuss social justice issues.
But Conley’s posts on the short-form video app were regularly met with racist comments. Viewers would call him “monkey” and the N-word, he said. In a private message, a user told him to kill himself. He began to suspect that trolls were mass-reporting his videos — a common concern — in an effort to get them taken down. Videos in which he called out other accounts’ racist posts would get flagged for “harassment and bullying” or “hate speech” and removed from the app, he said, while the posts he was criticizing stayed up.
Eventually, his account was permanently banned for multiple unspecified community guidelines violations. TikTok says it suspends and bans accounts for severe or repeated rule-breaking.
Conley made a second account but has struggled there too. He recently filmed a response to a viral video of a white user piercing their ears with a livestock-tagging gun, but his commentary was taken down for “dangerous acts” even though it didn’t include any such content beyond what had been in the original clip — which remained online. (The viral video eventually disappeared after The Times asked TikTok about the two posts; around the same time, Conley’s response was restored.)
At this point, Conley is ready to call it quits.
“It’s so draining,” he said. “Having an application … actively sabotaging you and not backing you up, or saying that you are the perpetrator of these transgressions or aggressions — it gets beyond tiring.”
Conley is not the first Black TikToker to say that he feels over-scrutinized and under-protected by the platform. Since at least the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, users of color have complained that TikTok — the most downloaded app in the world last year — handles their accounts and content in ways that seem unfair and racially biased.
But what sets Conley and the other Black TikTokers who spoke to The Times for this story apart is what they plan to do about it: get off TikTok for good.
Some are moving to Fanbase, an Instagram-esque platform that lets users charge their followers for access to bonus content. Others are trying out Clapper, a TikTok look-alike that has already found favor among right-wing “TikTok rejects.” The two apps have become the focal points of a small but vocal cohort of Black TikTokers looking to direct simmering dissatisfaction with TikTok into an actual exodus.
“We need a new app,” said one such user in a recent TikTok. “Shout out to Fanbase! Go to Fanbase … and Clapper.”
“Let’s start jumping ship y’all!,” a different user wrote, encouraging followers to join Fanbase.
It won’t be an easy transition. TikTok has an estimated 66 million users in the U.S. alone, each of whom represents a potential fan — or customer — for someone like Conley. Compared with that virtual nation of users, Clapper and Fanbase barely represent a midsize city. On the Google Play store, where TikTok has more than 1 billion downloads, the two apps have closer to 100,000 and 10,000, respectively. And although TikTok was downloaded from iTunes a total of 12 million times in August, Clapper and Fanbase were several orders of magnitude less popular at 50,000 and 20,000 downloads apiece, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower.
(A Clapper representative said it has been downloaded 1.5 million times total since launching last summer; Fanbase declined to share the size of its user base.)
“It’s kind of hard, just completely leaving a platform that everybody has access to and moving to an app that only a select market has,” Conley said.
But if Black users do make good on their threats to depart for friendlier pastures, the shift will hardly have come out of nowhere.
Built up and broken down
The frustration over TikTok’s moderation has less to do with any single error than with what many see as a recurring pattern. As the MIT Technology Review has noted, TikTokers from marginalized groups keep finding themselves subject to strange and seemingly targeted censorship; when the media picks up on a complaint and asks TikTok to explain, the company tends to blame one-off technical errors.
Last summer, amid the racial justice protests that erupted after George Floyd’s murder, TikToks tagged with #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd seemed to be getting zero views. The company attributed the issue to a glitch, noting that other, unrelated hashtags were similarly affected.
But even months after the protests, Black creators continued to complain that their videos were being taken down without explanation, listed lower than expected in search results and receiving far fewer views than usual.
In July, the app faced more such criticism after Ziggi Tyler, a popular Black user, went viral for a series of videos showing TikTok blocking him from using phrases such as “Black success” and “pro-Black” — but not “white success” or “pro-white” — in his bio. Again, TikTok said a technical error was at fault.
“I had inescapable proof of what we’ve all been talking about for, like, two years,” Tyler said in an interview.
It’s hard to know for sure whether bias in the TikTok algorithm is the problem in cases such as these, Kalinda Ukanwa, an assistant professor at USC who studies algorithmic bias, said in an email. “However,” she added, “the perception that TikTok’s algorithms are biased has been persistent.”
Other flashpoints have erupted around culture and community issues, with white commenters harassing Black creators, racist videos going viral, digital filters changing users’ skin tone, and non-Black users adopting Black affects. Viral dance challenges, a hallmark of the app, have proved particularly fraught, with white influencers accused of taking credit for moves created by Black choreographers.
TikTok is well aware of these complaints. On June 23, the company published a lengthy “commitment to diversity and inclusion” emphasizing that the platform would not tolerate racism and was working hard to “elevate and support Black voices and causes.”
To that end, TikTok launched a “diversity collective” to help guide the company’s approach to inclusivity, an accelerator program for Black creators and a program aimed at developing partnerships with Black entrepreneurs.
“We care deeply about the experience of Black creators on our platform,” a TikTok spokesperson told The Times. “We’re committed to seeing that our policies and practices are fair and equitable.”
Nevertheless, many Black TikTokers remain suspicious of TikTok’s moderation efforts.
Dea, a comedian with more than 200,000 TikTok followers, initially created two accounts on the app: one for her public speaking and one for her comedy. The latter account has been suspended on and off for weeks; she only recently regained full access to it.
In July, she jumped on a trend in which women pretend to light fires in order to get attractive firefighters to come rescue them. Some users garnered more than 1 million views by responding to the firefighters’ original video — but when Dea joined in, her post was taken down for “dangerous acts.”
After Dea appealed, TikTok restored her post, but the experience left her feeling too nervous to leave it up, and subsequent suspensions have her looking for an alternative: “It’s super toxic, it’s racist, and we’re never going to be able to progress with this app.”
Another Black TikToker, cosmetologist Sharly Parker, said she started having problems with TikTok during the 2020 election campaign, when her more political posts would get flagged for violating platform rules. Posts would get marked as containing nudity even if she was fully dressed, she said, or remain stuck at zero views all day.
Two videos reviewed by The Times were taken down for violations that were never explained to her and were not obvious. Another post she made featuring a song that used the N-word was removed for “hate speech” violations, even though a screen recording shows that the song itself — and several thousand other videos featuring it — remained up at the time. (The song appears to have since been removed.)
There have been financial effects too. Parker said TikTok has repeatedly blocked her from joining its “Creator Fund” monetization program for community guidelines-related reasons, and her fans frequently report being unable to access her livestreams — the only part of the app she makes money from.
“It can be depressing,” she said of the frequent takedowns. “It builds you up to break you down.”
A TikTok spokesperson said the platform does not moderate user content on the basis of race.
Moderation is a tricky job, and one that no social platform gets right 100% of the time. It requires balancing the competing interests of different users, lawmakers, advertisers and employees, and forces companies to grapple with thorny questions of free speech and public safety. TikTok does it with a combination of human and automated systems, both of which can be skewed by unintentional biases.
But for each of the users with whom The Times spoke — and the many other Black TikTokers who’ve publicly discussed their struggles with the app — the problem is rooted less in any singular moderation decision or technical gaffe than in a gradual accumulation of many recurring errors, some big and some small.
A Black exodus
The bottom line for TikTok is clear: Black users are thinking about leaving.
For some, that means ramping up their presence on mainstream platforms such as Instagram and YouTube (both of which have faced their own accusations of racial bias). Others are betting that lesser-known alternatives such as Fanbase and Clapper can be havens for Black creators.
Dea, the comedian, says she’s moving to Clapper, Fanbase and Instagram.
“I was like, ‘You know what, I’m done,’” Dea said. “I made the decision to leave the app for a while and just get my ducks in a row, concentrate on my other platforms.”
Parker, the cosmetologist, also joined Fanbase. Now she posts all her TikTok content there too — and hasn’t had “a single thing taken down.”
At this point, she said, there’s nothing TikTok could do to keep her around long term. Her bio now reads “Im off this racist app” and directs her followers to find her elsewhere.
For other Black creators, it’s not that simple.
Singer, actress and comedian Nicque Marina said she began posting TikToks about the Black Lives Matter movement and her experiences as a Black woman for the first time in fall 2020. It was then that she began to notice that the number of views on all of her posts, including her comedy and pop culture ones, “started to steadily drop to literally fractions” of what they’d been before — a change she attributed to her newfound outspokenness about race.
Because of the opaque nature of many social media algorithms, it can be hard to pinpoint the cause of any singular bump or drop in engagement. But explanations have been floated as to why TikTok might discriminate against racial justice content, from the app’s users being heavily white, to its algorithm over-indexing for creators’ races, to the company not hiring enough Black staff.
Ukanwa, the USC assistant professor, said one possibility is that the algorithm was “trained to flag content that involves race” as an anti-bullying measure but isn’t nuanced enough to distinguish between good and bad discussions of it. Another factor could be parent company ByteDance’s aversion to political content.
To avoid being “shadowbanned,” or subjected to artificially deflated viewership, Marina now avoids talking about some subjects on TikTok, reserving them for her YouTube followers (TikTok has denied using shadowbans). Yet she is sticking around, finding TikTok’s editing tools and the audience of more than 1 million followers she has cultivated there too valuable to abandon.
“I have no intention of being bullied off of anywhere,” she said. “Especially as a Black, female creator, I am not giving up a seat at a table that I’ve rightfully earned.”
It’s a common sentiment. LaToya Shambo, chief executive of Black Girl Digital, an influencer marketing agency focused on Black women, said that although many Black creators don’t feel appreciated or supported by TikTok, it’s hard to opt out of TikTok’s enormous user base when the apps being suggested as alternatives are much less popular.
“It’s a challenge when you are making money and you are seeing success on the platform,” Shambo said. “Some people are like, ‘I’m leaving. Fine, this is it.’ And some people are like, ‘You know what, not today.’”
Conley, the cosplayer, is in the former camp. Although his original account was restored soon after The Times reached out to TikTok about his complaints, he’s still in the process of moving over to Fanbase and Clapper. The transition is a headache — phasing out his TikTok presence; posting the same videos across multiple platforms; backing everything up to Google — but he sees it as a necessary act of resistance.
“I’m trying to keep my head up, and trying to keep fighting,” Conley said. “I don’t want to be defeated by an app.”
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Couple of weeks back the Jimquisition covered hate raids on Twitch. Another seriously fucked up activity and a social media company not giving a shit.
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Ok…
This will be a brief respite from all the serious discourse lately…
Apple had one of its annual meetings introducing its latest products like their new Ipad and Iphone 13.
On MW, the running joke with me was my indecision to get my first Iphone. I currently have #11 and I usually don’t switch
immediately to the next number but I skip numbers. So I will look into the new features of #13, see if it is really
worth it to switch up and take things from there…Exciting eh? 😁
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Remember the old days when people would bring makeshift tents, sleeping bags, and lounge chairs waiting overnight on line to get the latest iPhone or other gadget?
Not that I ever did that or anything…
I remember they did that with movie premieres. (Phantom Menace)
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Apple has been living off of iPhone and iPad for a pretty…long… time.
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Apple has been living off of iPhone and iPad for a pretty…long… time.
It’s not uncommon in tech. I remember reading a decade back that despite launching dozens or products only 3 things Microsoft have ever developed made money: Windows, Office and X-Box (and X-Box took a long time and several years of losses to get there).
It’s one of reasons there are so many acquisitions in the sector, they make such huge amounts with the core offerings they can buy ideas. They’ll buy the likes of Skype or Minecraft that have already established a market.
Apple in 45 years isn’t much different, the Apple II, Apple Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad have been big hits (although the iPod has been made obsolete by the features of the phones) with a good amount of flops or stuff with a lukewarm reaction.
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Couple of weeks back the Jimquisition covered hate raids on Twitch. Another seriously fucked up activity and a social media company not giving a shit.
I’m a mod on a friend’s twitch channel (who’s actually a friend of Sterling as well, as it happens), and they’ve been hit a couple of times by hate raids. We’ve noticed suspicious names popping in as followers and if we can schwack them fast enough the raid fails, but they still get through on occasion.
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Back to some “Woke” stuff and a little venting. It’s Friday…
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It has been said that black people can’t swim among other things. Well… US Blacks lack of swimming is really a legacy of segregation. Or…When did black people get all this prime beachfront property or have access to the “Whites only” private swimming pools?
This can be applied to other areas… It is not that black people are incapable, but it is a testimony to the opportunities they were cut off from all those centuries.
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The argument of Black on Black crime pretty much runs parallel to the immediate opportunities of victimizing… Similar to the white on white crimes in predominately white areas and countries.
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Rapper Nicki Minaj made the news over her anti vaccine stance that blocked her from the Met Gala. She stated that the vaccine made her cousin’s testicles shrink and ruined his life.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/16/americas/nicki-minaj-vaccine-story-false-scli-intl/index.html
Noooppppe. https://t.co/N7bREHL4QH
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 15, 2021
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As for rap, Kanye is a Trump supporter, there is misogyny in some rap lyrics and booty videos, homophobic towards Little Nas, transphobia…. It is a catchy art form, but like everything else, still a lot of work to be done.
———————-On social media, conservative jerks joked that they thought that LGBTQ meant “Let’s Get Biden To Quit”
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Trump cursed at those Third World Countries begging for aid calling them “sh*thole” countries. Never occurred to him that most of those countries had their wealth and resources stripped fromm them when they were colonies. Blame colonialism for raping their land, not the rape victim. Now they beg for help and asylum because of the victimization and rendering of their governments unstable.
———————————————-On a personal note:
Years ago, I was channel surfing late night and caught this talk show where there was a panel of young women of different orientations talking about how they navigate in life socially, etc.
They all related their stories. The lesbian woman was talking about how guys hit on her and when they find out her status, they then view her as a “challenge” and want to “convert” her saying things like “You don’t know what you are missing. Why not even try…” etc.
The bisexual woman of the panel related how guys also see her as a challenge and a “project” of sorts, wanting to get on her good side, be her friend, with the outside chance of getting a threesome out of it with her “already in the bag” as it were.
The last one was if I remember, a virgin or a “born again Virgin”… (someone who will save physical intimacy until after marriage with that special someone). She then related about how she finds the real men and how they treat her once sex is off the table and non negotiable.
It was an interesting show about them and the games men try to play to get over on them.
When I was relating some of this in the relationship thread, a few members refused to believe it, saying I made it up just to post. One said that since it wasn’t his experience and never heard about this, it doesn’t really exist.
Well, you’d be surprised at the things that exist beyond your own personal experience.I mean, WTF did they take me for? Am I a clown to amuse you with silly fictitious postings?
Makes me wonder…
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I think we already discussed most of these fairly thoroughly the first time they were posted.
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She stated that the vaccine made her cousin’s testicles shrink and ruined his life
No, she said they swelled to a gigantic size.
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She stated that the vaccine made her cousin’s testicles shrink and ruined his life
No, she said they swelled to a gigantic size.
Either way she was talking bollocks.
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I mentioned before that in the last US VP debate, Pence was trying to talk over Kamala and she paused and told him “I am speaking”.
That moment resonated with all the women who have been bullied and talked over by men in so many formal settings.
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So many times in office staff meetings, a woman or a person of color would say something that is ignored. About 10 minutes later, a usually white male colleague/counterpart pretty much repeats what was said and all of a sudden it becomes this great, brilliant idea! (You can Google “hepeating” for more information. Extra credit: Google “Mansplalining”) I don’t know… I’d want to raise hell, curse everyone out and resign ASAP, but there are steps like to unite with others, get witnesses to document everything for HR, pick your battles, that sort of thing.https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-hepeating-2017-9?amp
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TMasters just crossed my mind. He was member here, a law school student IIRC, and he would sometimes copy my writing style in tribute/homage! Nice guy. Hope he is Ok these days.
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I like raccoons.
— why you must have raccoon (@musthaveraccoon) September 15, 2021
*the forum seems to cut off part of twitter videos. click if you want to see the whole video
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My experience is similar but I also know my senior managers might well be more the exception than the rule.
I’ve heard stories from colleagues similar to what Al describes where the assumption is their male colleague at a meeting is assumed to be the lead officer.
Much of this is learnt behavior, I’ve worked with women in senior roles the entire time so those assumptions haven’t been acquired.
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Ok… Me…
Have I all of a sudden become “woke”, or a militant person of color?
No… but I was asked here to participate more and share more. No more just tossing up a “Jump Ball” of a question and have everyone else chime in and call it a “Thought Provoking Thread”. 😁 What ran through my postings had to do with an injustice, whether it was stealing, a coverup, whatever. If you ever wonder why a minority from a marginalized group is a little angry, bitter, etc. there are a lot of reasons from history, society, etc.
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Anyway, for the interested… Those cornrows or really “box braids” that were worn for thousands of years in Africa, but made “popular” by Bo Derek are really more than an aesthetic, but actually it is also a protective hairstyle for black women. Here is a link to glance through:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/hair/a34292308/box-braids/
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And a video on Gwen Stefani:
I still like that song “Don’t Speak” though…😂
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I subscribe to some musicians on Patreon, and I pay every month. You could say that what I get in return isn’t “worth” the amount I pay, but I’m not doing it for the reward. I’m doing it because I respect the musicians and they are honest about “We couldn’t afford to record our next album if not for this income”. So it’s not paying for the privilege of hearing an unreleased demo or an occasional livestream, it’s making an investment in future music that I know I am going to love.
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What’s the expression: The truth is out there?
Try this:
Back in 1970 in California, Xerox started this center called P.A.R.C. (Palo Alto Research Center). The center had young programmers, engineers, developers, who worked on experimental projects. One of the things they made was a rudimentary home computer with monitor, keyboard, and mouse, with a GUI.
Xerox knew about it but never went forward with it (Imagine if they did). So guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates visited the center a few times, saw the ideas and used them. The Mac GUI of icons came from PARC.
Here is a video from the early 70’s:
Interesting isn’t it?
More links:
https://www.newsweek.com/silicon-valley-apple-steve-jobs-xerox-437972
https://medium.com/bc-digest/the-xerox-thieves-steve-jobs-bill-gates-6e1b36fc1ec4
and Steve Jobs’ own admission:
It was said at the time on the release of Windows95 that it was really Mac89.
Truth is, perhaps both were PARC70.
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Speaking of COMPUTERS…
I decided to get some wireless devices like printer, mouse, keyboard, for my desktop.
I was looking at the back of by system and saw all these wires. It gets confusing and frustrating trying to find the
wire to unplug.Now I know what people mean by the “tangled Spaghetti” look in the back. 😂
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Memory Lane:
Who was that MW member who went by that Greek sounding name? Not ARCHONIS. 😁
I think it was Aristedes? or Aristophanes? I forgot…
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You know…
What Steve Jobs said about great artists steal and stuff
BEYONCÉ has been taken to court for allegedly copying
some cool things from up and coming lesser known artists and using them in her music videos.It never ends. Call it copy and paste, a knockoff, whatever…
—————-Ever since that post got all this started, I start to feel that some of this subject matter might be a little too much for the random thread. The Random Thread imho, has been about small cute tidbits of information and anecdotes, not for all this.
So if another thread can be started – maybe call it something like “The thread of Culture and Sociology” –
that may be more fitting of this content.Thoughts? Opinions?
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The Promised Messiah has returned!
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You know…
What Steve Jobs said about great artists steal and stuff
BEYONCÉ has been taken to court for allegedly copying
some cool things from up and coming lesser known artists and using them in her music videos.It never ends. Call it copy and paste, a knockoff, whatever…
—————-Ever since that post got all this started, I start to feel that some of this subject matter might be a little too much for the random thread. The Random Thread imho, has been about small cute tidbits of information and anecdotes, not for all this.
So if another thread can be started – maybe call it something like “The thread of Culture and Sociology” –
that may be more fitting of this content.Thoughts? Opinions?
This is just the kind of joke that Anders used to make. If only he were still here to enjoy it.
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I finally found out and got into Patreon.
Al – this very site had been running on Patreon for 2 years. There’s a pinned thread at the top of the Pub. 😂
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This is just the kind of joke that Anders used to make. If only he were still here to enjoy it.
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This is just the kind of joke that Anders used to make. If only he were still here to enjoy it.
Well, if it is Anders, at the very least he is still around… I feared for his safety in his implosion.
uh…. Welcome back?
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Patreon Gareth? So that’s what it was. I got into it more and it’s all right…
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I got into it more and it’s all right…
It is. Welcome aboard, please subscribe.
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So, just found out Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, is sexually fluid and has been in a long-term relationship with a woman for almost twenty years.
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So, just found out Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, is sexually fluid and has been in a long-term relationship with a woman for almost twenty years.
Yeah. It really says something about the pervasiveness of homophobia that Elvira of all people (a camp icon) felt the need to keep her relationship secret for nigh on 20 years because she worried that she’d be harshly judged by fans for being bi.
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I saw this and thought of Arjan:
Laagste Punt van Nederland (Lowest Point in the Netherlands)
Hey I can go lower!
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I have been much lower. The banks of the Dead Sea which is the lowest point on Earth (on land that is). 423 metres below sea level.
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Checking out the info on the iPhone 13 models
The Pro and the Pro Max are the deluxe models and while most of the advertisement content is about the resolution pixels, battery life, and crisp photos, very few consumers really care and very few are professional photographers or that serious about it.
I want it but… you know… there I go again… decisions, decisions.😂
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Say…
Who was that guy on MW who ALWAYS posted that movie gif of old Luke Skywalker drinking that blue milk?
He did get carried away…
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Al, have you made the pilgrimage to this place: Rod Serling’s Grave
No… but read this:
Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, died from cardiac arrest at the age of 50 in 1975. His last spoken words were: “That’s what I anticipate death will be: a totally unconscious void in which you float through eternity with no particular consciousness about anything.”
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Checking out the info on the iPhone 13 models
The Pro and the Pro Max are the deluxe models and while most of the advertisement content is about the resolution pixels, battery life, and crisp photos, very few consumers really care and very few are professional photographers or that serious about it.
I want it but… you know… there I go again… decisions, decisions.😂
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Say…
Who was that guy on MW who ALWAYS posted that movie gif of old Luke Skywalker drinking that blue milk?
He did get carried away…
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You know…
I love some of this early history of computers stuff:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-bill-gates-steve-jobs-feud-frenemies-2016-3
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Today, the Google page has a drawing of Christopher Reeve in his wheelchair and breathing apparatus because today would have been his 69th birthday.
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The other day I stopped by a relatives house and we were watching a little bit of the old Kevin Costner movie “No Way Out”. It was a suspense movie of him running around and trying to cover himself in the Pentagon when it seemed everything was closing in on him. Anyway, what we all noticed was how he wasn’t muscular but he had the right frame/physique to fill out the white Navy uniform. These days, I would say someone like a Daniel Craig and an Idris Elba also have this elegant look about them.Something to shoot for… We used to have this running joke on MW about “man crush” and that MW was a secret gay dating service. I wouldn’t go that far, but I always respected Bruce Lee with his slim build and he had tone/cuts all over-
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Before COVID, when we used to go to visit other’s houses, the little kids of my friends would stand next to men on the couch I was sitting and reach up to feel my hair and smile.Got to love innocent children.
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Is the random thread now where it is happening?
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I saw this picture with no real explanation. I think it is a puzzle. I am posting it to see if anyone here knows about it and can figure it out.
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Cup 5 gets filled first, and only cup 5 gets filled at all.
The other cups can only be filled from a flask. As some workplaces frown on that, may I suggest Vodka?
“No smell, no tell!”
Openly flaunting your consumption of Jagrbombs at 9 AM is only asking for trouble, and maybe a sign you’ve got a problem (just sayin’). -
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#AccidentalPartridge pic.twitter.com/qEmvhkMlML
— Accidental Partridge (@AccidentalP) September 28, 2021
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I'll take the basset way. pic.twitter.com/QbHxKdOKkj
— 🇺🇸 RIO 🇵🇹 (@riogirl9909) September 29, 2021
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The concept of the random thread is pretty easy, it’s to discuss anything you want that isn’t covered by an existing thread. It’s that open.
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Why are all wildlife documentaries narrated by British dudes with an oxbridge accent.
Because if it was a dude with a Geordie accent we wouldn’t understand a word he says.
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The concept of the random thread is pretty easy, it’s to discuss anything you want that isn’t covered by an existing thread. It’s that open.
I meant that a thread like this consists mainly of anecdotes. Some of the serious subject matter I posted may be a bit too much here which is why I suggested starting another thread where it might be more appropriate.
It’s like I am pulling teeth here…
Some of you are so far removed from what really goes on.
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Why are all wildlife documentaries narrated by British dudes with an oxbridge accent.
Ok, so there are reasons. Wildife documentary, when done really well, is very time consuming and expensive. When you watch the behind the scenes features on them sometimes they spend several months waiting to capture the 10 second moment you see on screen which isn’t hugely productive compared to most other programme making.
The BBC with its remit as a public service broadcaster, rather than a profit maker, set up a specific Natural History Unit headed a lot of the time by David Attenborough who pioneered this type of TV. They’d indulge them with 3-5 years to make a series etc. If you are NBC or Fox it doesn’t make financial sense to spend so much time and money on something that will likely get moderate ratings.
Others have done them over the years but basically the quality is nowhere near the BBC Attenborough ones. So those are the one shown most often and are then the standard to emulate, they want to make it look and sound like an Attenborough show (who still voices the BBC ones but his input is much reduced from when he produced the entire show as he’s in his 90s now).
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The concept of the random thread is pretty easy, it’s to discuss anything you want that isn’t covered by an existing thread. It’s that open.
I meant that a thread like this consists mainly of anecdotes. Some of the serious subject matter I posted may be a bit too much here which is why I suggested starting another thread where it might be more appropriate.
It’s like I am pulling teeth here…
Some of you are so far removed from what really goes on.
Well we all have different lives, interests and perspectives…sometimes when you post something other people will jump in on the discussion, other times people just read it without commenting on it, having nothing further to add.
This is the random thread…so you can post about anything you like.
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I meant that a thread like this consists mainly of anecdotes. Some of the serious subject matter I posted may be a bit too much here which is why I suggested starting another thread where it might be more appropriate.
It’s like I am pulling teeth here…
Some of you are so far removed from what really goes on.
Al, fellow, I personally find that last sentence to be extremely condescending if not insulting. I hope that wasn’t your intent.
As to serious subject matter, we have the News Thread, the Politics Thread, the Mind Expansion thread, and others where serious topics can be and are discussed; we also have the Weird News Thread if that’s your thing; and you are welcome to continue posting your thought-provoking insights here on the Random thread. You’re not pulling teeth so much as continuing to bang your head unnecessarily against an imaginary wall.
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