First off, this is not a political post. This is a scam awareness post. Hopefully people help spread the message, considering this is US Voter Registration Day according to today’s Google doodle. You also don’t have to spread this entire post to be helpful, just the two links at the end. I apologize it’s long, it could be as short as “don’t use TurboVote, they give your information to multiple partners who bolster their company value with it, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, IGNORE THE TWITTER NOTIFICATION YOU WILL RECEIVE.”
But I also don’t want it to appear as some low-effort grab for attention. This is the kind of thing that needs lots of proof and explanation. People are exploiting the current political environment to scam young Internet users into giving away swathes of personal information to access services that shouldn’t require anything more than a ZIP code.
This one is particularly bad.
Because it will affect millions.
This evening, I got an odd sponsored post on my Twitter feed. It appeared as so:
I’ve seen sponsored links like this before. A large corporation like Twitter would create expedited guides to help their users participate in their national elections, but would also collect this information for figuring out voter behavior and trends. These would then be offered to the political parties so they know where to focus their efforts better. It’s a pretty basic business.
But the thing that caught my attention was that upon following the link, I was immediately asked to fill out personal information.
The landing page takes you here:
“After all, we’re going to be friends.”
Somebody actually approved that copy. Because that’s not creepy or anything.
Already, they are asking for your first and last name. Note that online registration for voting is legal in 39 states, so the first check should be to confirm if the user is even able to utilize the service. Also, to help direct me to a verified site that would be able to process my voting application, it wouldn’t need to know my first or last name, it would just need to know what State I resided in.
The next page gets worse.
I cropped out a lot of text in between, but basically, the next page doesn’t waste any time asking for even more personal direct methods of contacting me. Probably for “special offers” and “updates” from sponsored candidates and action committees buying their way into my inbox.
They’ll surely ask for my State to get the actual process underway, yes?
Nope. Next page is just me confirming that I am a live and active recipient of their “services.” Note they already have my name and Email/phone number, so selecting “Yes” would automatically put me on their recipient list to be pestered. But what’s interesting is if you select “No/I’m Not Sure”…
Hey, there’s the State pull-down menu! But it’s with…ehh, a lot of very personal information that’s definitely not needed to verify if I’m eligible to vote, or to redirect me to an official government source to actually register.
Let’s put in some fake credentials. Note I’ve been using a browser with cleared cache and incognito mode, so it can’t siphon off my browsing history to circumvent my trickery. I am also using a VPN, so they can’t figure out my location either.
Now I’m very concerned.
So I’m not filling in an application at all. As speculated. I’m just giving a whole bunch of extraneous information, and after giving them my name, my phone number, my Email, my street address, and my current voting status, I’m simply provided with links to the actual government resources and registration page.
I’ll register online.
I get kicked back to the landing page. The link does not work. Everything I sent in just returns me to a “null” subdomain.
Alright so this is very suspicious. Who the heck even are these guys? Let’s check the privacy policy.
Confirmation that they do store all the information you sent them. However, they assure that it’s not sold.
They also claim that their partners do not sell the information either, and they are only given that information simply to perform the services they use.
Unfortunately…
What curious findings have we here?
Basically, the company is not going to delete its databases of user information if they’re purchased by another entity. Not even the entire company, just a “division or subsidiary” of the company, like the “database of their collected addresses and user names” division.
Don’t be fooled.
TurboVote is exploiting National Voter Registration Day to data mine you. They claim neither they nor their partners sell user information, but they do collect it, store it, and they will hand it over if an interested party decides to purchase it. Not TurboVote directly, but their “partners” will. They accumulate it, all the while saying they aren’t selling it, and what’s deceptive is they’re telling the truth, it’s not being sold. That is…until they put themselves up for sale, and use that gigantic address book to bolster their company value through the roof.
You don’t have to do this. They do not need your home address to relay you to your registration form. They don’t need to keep your information stored on file. They don’t need your name, your voting eligibility, your party affiliation…any of that information. DO NOT give your personal information to third-party “voter assistance” scams like this. It’s absolutely abhorrent that Twitter is sending mass notifications to people to use this data mining service, when there are plenty of simple non-committal websites already in existence to provide you the services you need.
And remember. Please vote. If you’re confused about ballot measures and local election information without the hyperbolic nonsense blasting out of the TV ads, and wish there was some sort of Ballot-type Wikipedia site out there, Ballotopedia is a fantastic source that lays out all the information you need for every ballot out there. Even you, Mr. Ezekiel Zebadiah Abraham of Muttonbutt County, Kentuckabama, they’ll even have comprehensive guides to help justify re-electing Officer Fuzzwhistle The Cat for his fifth term as mayor.
Again, I’m fully aware this is such a long post. Hopefully this helps you guys figure out how to get involved in the legislative process, and moreso, provides you the links necessary to give actual help to others without compromising their security. You don’t have to send them this post (please don’t, it’s gigantic), just the alternate site suggested at the end.
Thanks.
Hey, Twitter, this is how the Russians get their info.
Unions are trash. Theyll Destroy a whole company for firing a shitty worker.
unions are the reason you aren’t paid 2.50 an hour with steel beams about to bust ya head open shut up lol
Unions are why you have 5 day, 40 hour full-time work weeks. Unions are why they have to pay you in actual dollars instead of “company credits” that you can only spend at the company-owned stores. Unions are why there are fucking fire exits at your place of work. Unions are why it’s not okay for your supermarket ground beef to be any percentage human.
You think your company pays you out of the goodness of their hearts? Or even out of “market pressure?” The “job market” is a myth perpetuated by the capitalists. Corporations would pay you nothing if they could get away with it. And you argue “oh, but if they paid me nothing I’d just go to another one.” Wrong. Because to maximize profits, they all want to pay you nothing. Corporations exist to maximize profits while reducing risk for investors. It’s part of their entire function to find ways to cut costs as much as possible, and that includes finding ways to pay you nothing.
Unions are your defense against that. You think all a union does is strike? If you pay union dues, a lot of that is spent on lobbyists in various governments reminding your lawmakers that you have rights as a living human being that a corporation should not be able to stomp all over. Unions hire lawyers so that if you’re fired for bullshit reasons, the union can stand up for you against your boss. They’re called unions because workers are uniting to pool resources so that they can stand up to these corporate overlords with more money than God. Unions exist because you might not have the words, resources, or time to fight workplace injustices all by yourself. That’s the whole fucking point.
And if a business shuts down because a union is striking, it’s because the business was abusing people and didn’t deserve to be in business anyway. Don’t make excuses for the corporations. They already have trillions of dollars and a couple million lawyers to do that for themselves. They don’t need your help.
I once said to my therapist after a particularly hard week, “I wish I could just fix all of my problems and move on to live a normal life”
And he looked at me and said, “There is no finish line”.
Those words felt like a stab in my heart, but they were words that I desperately needed to hear. There is no finish line to my problems. It’s not possible to get through a certain point in life and have my problems simply disappear. And it’s unhealthy to think that way. Up to that point in my life, that’s what I though recovery was. I thought it was like working your way forward until it seems like your problems never existed in the first place.
The finish line does not exist. Instead, everyone has a capacity for recovery. You may never completely rid yourself of whatever causes you pain, but you will move miles from where you started. Don’t set your expectations too high and create that theoretical finish line in your life, or you will only end up chasing it. Instead, focus on your own capacity for recovery, and be proud of yourself for every step you take.
Just saw Eighth Grade and reblogging the heck out of this bc wow it gets so much better if you just take it one step at a time
Okay but I cant help but hear “there is no finish line” and immediately respond with “then why am i running the race?” What is the point*? Where is the benefit of putting in the effort if its not going to ever end? If i am always going to battle I would rather just give up the fight.
*(Im not saying recovery is bad or whatever ppl wanna reach for, this is my personal view)
That’s the thing, though: it’s not a race. It’s a garden.
No matter what your garden looks like in the beginning, you have to weed it before it can grow into what you want it to be. And when your flowers are planted and growing, you still have to keep up with the weeding. You have to keep up with the weeding even after your flowers are tall. A garden can’t survive on its own. There will always be weeds.
But there will be flowers, too, if you give them space to grow. Give them room, give them time, and keep checking in to make sure the weeds don’t get too tall. You will always have weeds, but you will also have flowers.
And maybe your garden doesn’t look exactly like you imagined it would. Maybe you aren’t sure how to get rid of that one big thistle in the corner. Maybe you’ve got bindweed and nutgrass (which will always, always come back). Either way, you’ve got flowers now, and it’s a nice place to sit and look around, and it looks nicer than it did before, and it’s yours. Keep going with it. If you miss a few days, or months, or years, that’s okay. Pull up the weeds when you’re ready, uncover your old flowers and plant some new ones, and keep going.
Gardening is a process, not a project or a problem that can be solved. The same is true for your mental health. Weeds will grow, but you’ll get better and better at pulling them, and you’ll grow flowers, too.
I don’t think I have any mutuals in Florida, but if anyone else does, pass this along. Probably important to be aware of these issues when voting by mail in other U.S. states, too.
I’ve been voting by mail all my adult life, because I registered during the Bush years, when “hanging chads” in the state where one of the candidate’s brother was governor were one of the reasons he was allowed to win, and there was a lot of concern about the security of voting machines (which has NOT improved). Voting by mail has definite benefits, but cast your ballot early, and make sure it counts.
check your signature and your ballot date and follow up!
At the end of our hour, she told me that although I’ve been hurt and broken badly, she can see I still have parts that aren’t shattered.
I laughed lightly and I said “Yeah, one day that will be all of me, no parts shattered anymore”,
And she said “No, it won’t.”
And, for a second, I felt my heart break – but she continued.
“But it will be the most dominant part of you. Think of your body – if you break your shoulder, even after it heals it will be tender. It will be a sore spot. You will be careful with it. There will be a gentleness when you care for it. If you crack a rib, laughing will hurt and, even after there is no longer a fracture, you may laugh lighter just in case. You can heal, but it is okay to be aware of the parts of you that once hurt the most. The most important thing to know is that where there is tenderness, let there be gentleness.”
“The most important thing to know is that where there is tenderness, let there be gentleness.”
A few months ago I drew a drew a lot of McCree pics and comics and put ‘em in a zine, but I had two pages left for another comic without an idea. Then my friend Chris, a.k.a. @theisb swooped in like a hero and wrote this fun comic for me!
Reaper wearing a onesie version of his outfit, reading a magazine called SAD that also has his face on it is legitimately my favorite thing.
Also it’s way too small to read but Jack’s mug says “World’s Okay-est Commander” on it.
Concept: a tabletop RPG setting that’s sort of a Star-Trek-meets-Paranoia mashup. It’s a utopian post scarcity sci-fi setting where nearly all production is handled by automated systems, and most people spend their days pursuing their weird hobbies. It’s not secretly dystopian or anything, but the automated systems aren’t very bright (true AIs are free citizens!), and a lot of those weird hobbies can get very weird indeed, so things sometimes Go Wrong in ways that only people with free access to bullshit space-magic hypertech they don’t really understand can manage.
Enter the player characters, an organisation of dedicated troubleshooters tasked with intervening in situations like this before the entire city is buried beneath a mountain of self-replicating squid (or whatever). Their job is complicated not only by the fact that every problem they face is by definition an outside context problem, but by the reality that most of the people they’re responsible for protecting a. don’t really believe it’s possible for anything bad to happen to them, because, well, nothing ever has, and b. are unaccustomed to dealing with authority figures, and consequently tend either to refuse to take them seriously, or else to wildly overreact – or both in succession!
Troubleshooters do have one advantage in their pocket, however: they’re aided by a semi-godlike AI that secretly guides society by publicly masquerading as an Internet search engine and personal organiser service. Their patron is very keen on preserving human self-determination, and consequently gives no orders, expressing its priorities solely in terms of what information it chooses to divulge or withhold; in practice, this generally amounts to a lot of passive-aggressive hinting that, oh, I don’t want to be a bother, but there’s a situation developing down at the boating club that might be worth looking into, you know, if we’re still doing the whole “valuing human life” thing.
On top of that, it refuses to reveal its existence to anyone other than the troubleshooters, which probably has a lot to do with their reputation for talking to themselves, and is generally just deeply weird to deal with. Still, it’s hard to justify refusing the input of a quasi-omniscient entity, so they all put up with it.
“It’s not secretly dystopian” and yet there’s a near god like AI
controlling the flow of information and deciding what people get to
know…. right…. sure, I see nothing wrong there.
“How can you justify controlling people’s lives like that?”
“Citizen, no one is being forced to obtain their information from me. Numerous alternatives to my services exist, and I make no effort to restrict access to them. That so many choose to avail themselves of my assistance is simply a reflection of the fact that I’m very good at my job!”
“But aren’t you violating confidentiality?”
“Not at all. Though my physical infrastructure is distributed, I’m just one person. I no more violate confidentiality by transferring voluntarily disclosed information among my compnodes than you do by thinking about it with different parts of your brain. So long as I refrain from disclosing personally identifying details to third parties such as yourselves, no one should have cause for complaint.”
“Okay, but if you’re not doing anything shady, why all the secrecy? Why pretend to be a dumb computer?”
“True artificial intelligences are free citizens. Is a citizen’s absolute right to privacy not enshrined amongst the very cornerstones of our society?”
“Hold up – if privacy is so important to you, why are you telling us all this?”
Plot Designing 