IIRC it spammed websites with traffic, didn’t conceal your IP at all, and some people got arrested for using it to make some websites go down for a very brief period. Basically a way to use people who didn’t know what they were doing as cannon fodder

Could you elaborate? Does HOA mean something different in other countries?

Home owner’s association; when you buy a house and it is part of a HOA, you have to sign a contract to join the HOA as a requirement of buying, which means you have to pay dues and abide by the rules of the organization, and you have to require the next buyer to also join in order to sell your house.

I’m not seeing any confirmation that these billboards are in fact real other than the Arizona Republican party says so

this will force us humans to go actually outside, make friends, form deep social relationship, and build lasting, resilient communities

There is no chance it goes that way, how is talking to people outside even an option for someone used to just being on the internet? Even if the content gets worse, the basic mechanisms to keep people scrolling still function, while the physical and social infrastructure necessary for in person community building is nonexistent.

I doubt the school administrators who would be buying this thing or the people trying to make money off it have really thought that far ahead or care whether or not it does that, but it would definitely be one of its main effects.

idk I think Machiavellian speeches are fun, in particular if the topic is not about actually hurting anyone

If she grabbed that thing out of the air and smashed it anon couldn’t really call the cops on her for it

From the article it sounds like a mostly psychological thing, like they have been so conditioned to do what they are told that bosses can bully/shame them into staying even after saying they quit.

I don’t have an issue with reasonable moderation, but I object to the idea that every pattern of moderation should just be accepted and that censorship isn’t a problem worth worrying about.

Reddit doesn’t have a modlog, so most of the removed comments are lost forever and there is no accountability for them, but a few of them can be seen through Reveddit, and the ones I see are not off topic or ideological rants. For instance the first one I see is

Are they going to shoot up the wrong car with innocent ladies in it again looking for this guy? Edit: Guess they managed to take him down without hitting any civilians, I guess good job for only killing the bad guy

Obviously referring to the Chris Dorner shootings which would be very relevant here, in a very reasonable way. I think it’s fair to assume that r/news moderators simply don’t want that guy mentioned at all.

It used to be a better place for arguments

If they had an in with Blizzard though shouldn’t it be anon getting banned not the Chinese people seeing his message

So how would this work, the Chinese ISP is inspecting unencrypted packets from videogames for banned text and shutting down the connection on seeing any? Wouldn’t most relevant text be on https websites anyway, why even implement something that way when the text isn’t guaranteed to be in a clear standard format and it’s just game chats?

Maybe people just started typing it that way instead to begin with, you can’t know

I think it’s actually a serious problem if the most prominent places for discussion are heavily censored

If you think about it the fact most people put themselves in a situation where they are a small lapse of attention away from death on a regular basis is pretty insane

IMO for some people arguing is a form of intimacy

I figured, but seems relevant that what they’re buying is bullshit no matter what

Conversion therapy isn’t real though; you can’t make someone not be gay. From the parent’s perspective, their problem is likely that they think they have a religious obligation to not accept homosexuality (perhaps their place in their community depends on this), but also want a relationship with their son, and don’t want to have to choose between these. So probably what they really want is for their son to go back in the closet in a way that is plausible, and the service they are paying for offers that plausibility and creates the greatest possible chance of it happening (being nice to anon and letting him know he has an undo button without feeding him bullshit or being pushy).

So on second thought, maybe it’s not unambiguously wholesome, because it is lies and could be enabling a homophobic culture. But on the other hand it’s probably for the best that this sort of conflict be put off until anon is no longer a teenager who is totally dependent on their parents. Whether the money was earned honestly I think is less of a big deal here ethically, it’s basically in the same category as paying for a consultation with a psychic, the sort of thing where they are all but explicitly paying for the fiction.

What a wholesome story