In my experience, there’s always a way around parental controls on these devices and if there isn’t, there’s always a way that your child will subvert them in other ways.

Half the time it’s a well-intentioned and ignorant adult providing them the means.

I’m running arch on mine.

Ah, that’s probably why you like it. I’m talking about a Win 11 machine managed by our institution. I’m sure if I could get away from how we have Win 11 setup, I probably would only complain about the power location and the weight, but those are very minor.

You really like them? I got issued one for work and am not a fan.

The power button on these things is in the least intuitive spot and I’ve had lots of weird driver issues causing hardware to fail intermittently. Specs look good on paper, but the experience has been really lacking. The moment I can swap, I think I will.

The real world is wild enough without fantasy.

Perhaps this is a case of the kettle calling the pot black? Have you even considered what I said could hold some truth? I can say I have considered yours and told you I thought there was merit to it.

Does it make sense to go to the extra effort to learn a new language when they could just go to Instagram or lemon8 like many others have done? That is the path of least resistance for feeding an addiction, not overcoming a language barrier.

I agree with your assessment of why people get hooked on these social media apps and what would drive them from switching to TikTok to another app that fills the same role, but I don’t think that’s the only thing that is going on here.

My original comment was framed the way it was because yours seemed to be implying addiction was the only thing driving people’s behavior in this specific instance, but the article your comment was replying to is showing that while people are switching from TikTok to Rednote, there was also a corresponding increase in US users who are seeking resources to learn Mandarin. This implies that more is going on and is where your “people are only being driven by addiction” analysis falls apart.

Sure, I can see people switching apps to continue chasing an addiction, however, the uptick in US interest in learning Mandarin implies that people are interested in communicating with people who speak mandarin. If you looked at how Rednote is currently functioning in English, you can see that it’s not necessary to learn Mandarin to use the app the same way they did on TikTok. People are finding more than just a way to fill a social media addiction.

The fact that they are seeking out ways to better communicate with other users on Rednote suggests they are looking to become closer with that subset of users, which is an action driven by a desire to build a community with them. You don’t go learning a new language because of addiction.

Seconded. HelloChinese is so much better at teaching than Duolingo and it scratches the same game-like itch.

People searching for a means of connecting with a community is a negative thing since when? Better to look at the source of their feelings of alienation outside of the internet and point the finger at that instead of flippantly dismissing people using social media from a social media platform.

It’s just the worst one.

Agreed.

For instance, G Suite is now so thoroughly integrated into school workflows that, even if they collect nothing from students while under 13 (ha!), they are setting kids up to harvest their data in the future by forcing them to learn how to perform basic tasks only on their apps. It’s like advertising fruity cigarettes or vapes, but for data.

It’s not just that all of these companies harvest everyone’s data, but so many of them are specifically targeting kids from as young of an age as they can.

My issue was with that type of sarcasm, which is why I responded with a similarly dismissive sarcastic remark.

Dismissing people’s complaints by saying “you can go use something else/move someplace else” is unhelpful and used to negate their complaints without ever having to address their source.

I doubt many people see an anonymous counter as a huge problem itself, I don’t. The point is that this is a first step in a direction we don’t want to see the software go. If you don’t push back against these things from the moment they show up, they will continue to slowly inch in that direction until you end up in a nightmare like Chrome or Edge.

Seems like a good idea except for how often these states already force their own spyware and backdoors onto projects. Ideally, the state would fund it, but given their history, I’d prefer costs were covered by user donations as the interests of the users are the only interests I trust. We are the only group that is truly independent of competing interests.

Crowd funding and donations obviously have their own drawbacks. Maybe we can find a work around to avoid the privacy violations of states in the future, but I don’t have a simple answer for how to accomplish this. The way the FOSS community operates is currently the best alternative I’ve seen, but I’m sure it’s not always lucrative for developers. People need to be compensated for their labor and our current systems tend to put development interests at odds with user interests.

While we’re at it, we should add Microsoft to the antitrust case…again.

Typical. You post a reasonable response and get a bunch of ad-pilled shit takes:

“But will you eat shit if I put a little chocolate on it?”

“If you don’t eat shit, you don’t deserve to interact with the internet eat.”

“Maybe if you pay them a little money, they’ll stop trying to serve you shit?”

Advertisers contribute nothing of value to our society and contribute little of value to even the companies they serve. Let them burn. Every action they take to “serve” me ads will be met with an equal counteraction.

We deserve to live a life without being constantly bombarded with messages telling us to buy, buy, buy! This significantly decreases our quality of life and is endemic within our entire society. What the hell are all of you who defend advertisers thinking?

Give them an inch and they will take a mile. It definitely won’t be the first time.

“Why don’t you just move to another country if you don’t like it here?”

“I say this as a true patriot.”

There’s your issue.

Got it figured out, thanks!

A shit, my bad. I didn’t scroll far enough, thank you!

Still getting a mostly blank page. Similar to what I tried earlier with archive.ph and archive.today.

Is it just me getting no text content?

Archive.ph and removepaywalls.com aren’t working. Does anyone have a way around the WaPo paywall?

I have a boss who will remote to a meeting that takes place right outside his office, then come in-person to the next meeting that immediately follows in the same room. People like the flexibility.