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friend with knife 🔪

@elltsii.bsky.social

steel ball run appears on some sports manga lists so jot that down

February 11, 2026 at 9:14 AM

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tshirt

@tshirt.bsky.social

anyway i came back on here to try to invent the ethical vague.

I saw some whitewashed danmei-inspired fiction a while ago. And obviously it bothered me. But what also bothered me was that I didn’t know quite what to do next.

I have mutuals in common with the author. So I was going to ask one of them to privately DM some concerns to the author. But when I sat down to write that message, I realized that I had no clue what I wanted from the interaction.

Did I want an apology to the Chinese people at large? Not really, no. I don’t think that would actually do anything. Did I want them to delete their writing in penance? Again, not really. I’m not trying to punish this person. What I really wanted was someone to have said at the onset of that person’s project: “Hey! Could you think this premise and project through a little more?” I want the harm to never have existed. I want fantasies; I want alternative universes. I want something that very self-evidently did not happen.

So what now? What I’m really asking is a very simple, very commonly asked question: how do we identify and repair harm? Maybe we can try to think through this together.

What was the harm? This is a bit nebulous. The whitewashing upset me, but the reason it’s bad is not because it hurts my feelings, although my earlier writing has attempted to restore this dimension to the conversation. I think the harm is that it is part of a common practice of treating Chinese culture (and other cultures of people of color) as purely aesthetic, apolitical, and disposable. So, how do we fix this?

As a writer, I do believe that critique, like the kind I’m writing right now, is an important part of making this dynamic visible and then rejecting it. If whitewashing is allowed to remain invisible and unremarked upon, this both reinforces and naturalizes it. Ideally, I could break down exactly how whitewashing occurred, why it went unremarked upon, and some strategies for avoiding it.

But critique is charged. To be frank, I don’t trust you, the reader of this post. I don’t trust you to be chill about this. I want to be able to have a conversation about whitewashing that doesn’t result in 1) harassment or 2) a lack of reflection from people doing the harassing. I am not drawing a link between anti-racist critique and harassment. I am alluding to a social dynamic that I’ve written on before in my earlier essay “white eyes and chinese looks,” the last time I tried to write about whitewashed danmei-inspired fiction. The problem isn’t that people care too much about anti-racism; the problem is that people care insufficiently about meaningful anti-racism. Anyway.

So instead of putting this author on blast, I am writing a gentle reminder to us all to consider how whitewashing may manifest, even in our mutuals’ work. I encourage you to say something to them, if you think you know who this is about. You may be right. You may be wrong. But either way, you have started a conversation about whitewashing in a respectful way that is hopefully more productive than anything I can write to a stranger. And to the author of the story I’m talking about, I don’t have any practical ways for you to rework your story. I think it’s pretty inherently predicated on whitewashing, and I would like you to sit with that.

February 11, 2026 at 2:55 AM

friend with knife 🔪

@elltsii.bsky.social

patrick batemen with the subtitle edited to say, "I have to log some movies" referring to the Letterboxd app.

person in a straight jacket on a hospital bed on top of a warped image of a rose and candle with text surrounding them that say "fake cinephile..." "extreme cinephile..." "retired cinephile"

February 11, 2026 at 4:42 AM

friend with knife 🔪

@elltsii.bsky.social

my therapist once again being like "youre really a movie buff huh" heh, u could say that

February 11, 2026 at 4:39 AM

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Angus Johnston

@angus.bsky.social

One of every thousand American residents has been taken into custody by ICE in the last year.

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · 20h

A stunning detail the ICE chief shared in this hearing that was supposed to be a brag, except it isn't: ICE has arrested 379,000 people between Jan. 2025-Jan. 2026 -- but only 8,700 were suspected gang members or known suspected terrorists.

That's 2%! www.huffpost.com/entry/latest...

Congresswoman Uses Simple Math To Show How Broken ICE Is

www.huffpost.com

February 10, 2026 at 9:11 PM

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onion person

@junlper.beer

lol donald trump invaded venezuela and captured maduro all so that they’d stop sending oil to cuba and start sending it to israel jesus christ man its just too ridiculous

February 10, 2026 at 7:26 PM

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Kat Tenbarge

@kattenbarge.bsky.social

I’m glad to see people protesting Discord forcing IDs for age verification, but what I need everyone to understand is that there’s immense bipartisan pressure to make the entire internet like this, and they are likely going to succeed unless something drastic happens

February 10, 2026 at 1:23 PM

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Rebirth Homos 🍳

@hexhomos.bsky.social

neurodetergent

February 10, 2026 at 8:35 PM

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grace under pressure

@persisting.bsky.social

This is not Discord “walking things back.” This is them further explaining the situation in more detail, and elaborating on how the new system will work. I understand the impulse to attribute this to outrage and Nitro cancellations, but this is just a better explanation, not a change.

Brian M @legendofnerd.bsky.social · 1d

Discord is already starting to walk things back a little, so people should keep doing what they're doing (cancel Nitro, leave feedback/criticism, direct contact through support tickets/phone/email/etc)

Tl;dr: The vast majority of adults will never have to interact with our age assurance systems and their experience won't change, because we know Discord and how people use it, so we're designing to respect privacy and deliver a safer experience while minimizing friction for adults.

Hey folks –

I’ve been on Discord since very early 2016 and actually joined the company in 2017. Safety is one of my areas, so today’s announcement on our blog is something I’ve been pretty involved with. I’ve always cared about Discord's approach to privacy (E2EE for A/V was another of my projects here), so I figured I’d add some more context to today's news.

I can say confidently that the vast majority of people will never see age verification. I say this because we launched age assurance in the UK and Australia in 2025, and we have some pretty good data on this now. The idea here is that we can pre-identify most adults based on what we already know (not including your messages!), and that looks to get us pretty far here. No face scans, no IDs, for the vast majority of adults.

And if you are one of the smaller subset of folks that we can't definitively pre-identify, then still, you only have to do it if you're accessing age-restricted servers or channels, or changing certain settings. That's really not most users. (Altho... might be more Redditors, tbh.)

Last, I know that there is concern about privacy and data leaks. That's a real concern. The selfie system is built purely client-side, it never leaves your device, and we did that intentionally. That'll work for a bunch of users who aren't pre-identified as adults. But if you do end up in the ID bucket, then yeah, you're right that has some risk. We're doing what we can to minimize this by working with our range of partners (who are different partners than the data leak you read about), and if it's any help, we learned a lot internally from the last issue. But I get if that doesn't necessarily inspire more confidence.

Anyway, we’ll be sharing more next month as we get closer to the global roll out about the system, including the technology behind it in March. I honestly wouldn't be happy if we didn't build something good and I am excited about what we’re launching, but please let us know what you think when we share more details.

And I really appreciate everybody's feedback here today. We’re definitely reading it!

February 10, 2026 at 3:09 AM

friend with knife 🔪

@elltsii.bsky.social

owwururgghhhh

jennifer uncoolidge @histoftech.bsky.social · 1d

When AI was added to a tool for sinus surgery: “Cerebrospinal fluid leaked from one patient’s nose. In another… a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured”

www.reuters.com/investigatio...

As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts

Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient ...

www.reuters.com

February 10, 2026 at 8:34 AM

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SIMONE 🩷

@simonee.bsky.social

instead of watching Heated Rivalry, my best friend is watching Interview with the Vampire for the first time, which is sort of like if you offered someone a nice hot cocoa with marshmallows and they snorted several lines instead

February 10, 2026 at 3:56 AM

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vert ⚡️🪶 open to work

@subvertebra.bsky.social

if you meet certain requirements (i believe it's income threshold), you may also get state taxes for free through FreeTaxUSA dot com. we hold hands every year and it's very straightforward and easy. they even tell you what to do if you have a 1099-NEC with income also listed on a MISC or K form!

meggoart @ WOWKEA @meggoart.bsky.social · 3d

TAX PSA: are YOU a freelancer who thinks you have no choice but to use Turbotax because you need to fill out a Schedule C form? WRONG ❌

FreeTaxUSA will do that for you! Federal taxes (including complicated forms like Schedule C) is free and state taxes only cost 15.99 !

February 7, 2026 at 7:43 PM

Reposted by friend with knife 🔪

Preeti Chhibber

@runwithskizzers.bsky.social

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse

gradient.horse

Draw a horse, watch it run!

gradient.horse

February 9, 2026 at 11:11 PM

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Bluesky

@bsky.app

v1.116 is rolling out now!

For all the overthinkers and perfectionists out there, we're launching Drafts.

A demonstration of where you can find the drafts feature in the top right corner of the post composer on Bluesky.

February 9, 2026 at 8:21 PM

Reposted by friend with knife 🔪

GB

@gbdialga.bsky.social

The balls Discord has to introduce an age verification update after they already had a major data breach back in October.

February 9, 2026 at 4:08 PM

friend with knife 🔪

@elltsii.bsky.social

did NOT notice many people posting hourlies this year 😵‍💫 #eltsiirl

this is the first year in a long time I haven't wanted to do hourly comics day.
my feb 1st was like: (3 panel comic)
1: I'm drinking all liquid diet. drawing of cups.
2: faint in bed. drawing of me in bed.
3: shitting my ass for hours for a colonoscopy. drawing of me reading wolf hall and saying, "He's just like me."
My feb 8th was like: (3 panel comic)
1: I was REDACTED at REDACTED. drawing of me in bed.
2: me saying, "and REDACTED."
3: drawing of Dracula from the 2025 movie on a theater screen. I'm saying, "hes just like me." Cody is saying, "what? sweaty?" "yea."

February 10, 2026 at 2:47 AM

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The Intercept

@theintercept.com

In one 30-minute stretch, three legal observers were arrested — as Trump’s Border czar Tom Homan calls on locals to “end the resistance.”

“Uptick In Abductions”: ICE Ramps Up Targeting of Minneapolis Legal Observers

In one 30-minute stretch, three Minneapolis legal observers were arrested as ICE ramped up its targeting of community volunteers.

interc.pt

February 9, 2026 at 6:19 PM

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The Blind Archer (Commission Waitlist Open)

@theblindarcher.bsky.social

It could be really bad for Discord if Californians contact the office of the Attorney General to report the potential violations of CCPA and CALOPPA citing the recent breach from a few months back where 1.5tb of user data and millions of IDs were leaked, but who can say for sure?

The Verge @theverge.com · 2d

Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

Age verification for all.

buff.ly

February 9, 2026 at 4:57 PM

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depths of wikipedia

@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social

"prohibition in the united states" has this time lapse map that switches from folksy banjo music to ominous industrial sci-fi for the 15 seconds when alcohol was illegal nationwide

February 9, 2026 at 12:13 AM

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Matthew Guariglia

@mguariglia.bsky.social

Ok, you can stop texting me, I saw the Ring ad. Troubling things about it 🧵:

-The long awaited (much warned about) intro of “AI” recognition. It starts w/ searching for a “brown dog” but means the tech is there for lisence plate reading, face recognition, searching for suspects by description, etc

February 9, 2026 at 2:45 AM

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Matthew Guariglia

@mguariglia.bsky.social

Icing on the cake is that hyper-pro police surveillance founder Jamie Siminoff, who recently returned to the CEO roll and dismantled years of privacy reforms appeared in the commercial.

Read more:

Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices....

www.eff.org

February 9, 2026 at 2:45 AM

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headfallsoff

@headfallsoff.com

the thing that’s insane about ring cameras to me is they almost entirely surveil amazon workers. you’re paying them to be their security contractor

February 9, 2026 at 11:48 AM

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Wario64

@wario64.bsky.social

Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month - all accounts set to "teen-appropriate experience" by default www.theverge.com/tech/875309/...

discord.com/press-releas...