To the despair of my most liberal friends, I stopped wearing masks indoors weeks ago, about two weeks after my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and well before the CDC updated their guidance that vaccinated individuals no longer need masks indoors. Also, I never really wore masks outside. As anyone who followed CopyrightBro throughout 2020 surely knows, this is not because I didn’t take the pandemic seriously, but because I trusted what the science said. I’m now wondering whether some of my friends actually care about the science or whether they used it as a convenient talking point in an elaborate game of identity politics disguised by a public health crisis.

Science is science and facts are facts, regardless of whether the CDC has publicly acknowledged them yet. The CDC obviously wants to be dealing in facts, but the truth is they also have to weigh the political effects and the real world outcomes of any announcements they make. Their credibility has been seriously shaken in the past year, so I think it makes sense for Americans to start making their own decisions based on the science, even if the CDC hasn’t given them those specific directions yet. By March, anyone with eyeballs could see that the vaccination campaign was moving at a good clip and that it wouldn’t be long before a majority of Americans were vaccinated. While it would take a bit longer to reach herd immunity, the risk of any one person catching COVID was quickly falling, and we also knew that the vaccines had extremely high efficacy. Vaccinated individuals who were truly motivated by science had practically nothing to fear, so it makes sense that they would do the math for themselves and decide that it was safe enough to start the process of getting back to normal (and leaving masks behind) even though the CDC hadn’t yet relaxed any of their recommendations.

Experts believe we need roughly 70-90% of adults to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity. My understanding is that we’re currently at about 60%, but we’re fighting an uphill battle because we’re now at the point where supply has outstripped demand; vaccinations rates are slowing because most of the people who wanted vaccines got them early, so we’re now dealing with the slower process of convincing those who were skeptical or hesitant that vaccines are safe and in their best interest. I doubt we’ll ever get more than 80-85% because a significant number of people now believe the rampant disinformation that’s been spread from antivaxxers and the far right (largely on Facebook and Fox News), but I do think there are a number of convincible people out there who just need a little more encouragement or incentive.

My decision to stop wearing a mask isn’t just some libertarian urge to get back to normal and stop letting the government “control my life,” which was a pretty stupid argument to begin with. The best reason for taking the masks off (aside from the fact that it is undeniably safe to do so) is that for those who are hesitant about vaccines, this could be the extra incentive they need to do their research and decide that it may be worth it for them to take the shots, provided that they can then also ditch their masks. Nobody really likes wearing them. They’re uncomfortable, they cause glasses to fog up, they force to you smell your own breath, and generally make breathing a bit less efficient. Seeing vaccinated people go in stores and conduct their lives like normal may be the best incentive we could come up with, for a lot of people.

The only counter argument to using freedom from masks as a vaccination incentive worth considering is that we would have no way to know for sure if someone is fully vaccinated, and whether they’re technically allowed to take their mask off just yet. I think the response to that argument is pretty straightforward: it doesn’t matter. As long as we don’t have any sort of vaccine passport (and that’s something I think the federal government needs to be looking into), it’s true that we can’t verify who’s been vaccinated and are therefore forced to rely on the honor system. But again, it doesn’t matter. The only people who are going to be hurt by people lying about their vaccination status are other people who are lying about their vaccination. If you’ve already been vaccinated, you really have no reason to fear a redneck Trump supporter who lied to the greeter at Walmart: the only people he’s going to hurt by spreading COVID in there are the other unvaccinated morons who lied to get past the greeter.

If you’re a liberal who has been vaccinated and you’re still desperately clinging to your mask despite the fact that the science says you have no realistic chance of getting COVID from the redneck in Walmart, you need to ask yourself if it was ever really about the science for you. I suspect it probably wasn’t. A disappointing number of people on the left seem to have entangled their political identity with mask wearing (as many on the right have done with their refusal to wear one), using masks as a way to virtue signal, wearing them proudly as a badge of their status as good, obedient liberals. If that’s what it’s about for those who claimed to be following the science, then it becomes a lot harder to blame those on the other side and those who are honestly skeptical of the science. The left accused Trump and the right of politicizing masks from the start, and while they were certainly guilty of that, the left wasn’t innocent: they were just more subtle. If you were using the science to shit on Republicans for not wearing mask six months ago, then you should expect them to use that same excuse to shit on you for continuing to wear masks now.

The bottom line: get your shots, ditch your mask.

Seeing as I am an American, my opinion on maters concerning Israel and Palestine are obviously limited and informed by my personal experiences in the United States, and my concerns with the crisis that is unfolding tends to focus on aspects of American involvement (and the avoidance thereof). Though, as a citizen of a nation that is definitely recognized by the international community as a legitimate country (if not one of the premier legitimate countries), I feel pretty secure in the first point I want to make regarding Israeli and Palestinian sovereignty. While the Israelis claim that Palestine isn’t a real country and Palestinians claim that Israel is a made up country, they’re both internationally recognized by the United Nations as sovereign states, and they were BOTH made up and given to the people who live there by the United Nations, more or less out of pity. So I don’t think either side has any ground to be making arguments about the sovereignty of the other.

I’ll get my most unpopular opinion out of the way early: my view on these two countries is that it’s in the best interest for the people who live there and the international community for neither of them to exist. Clearly the one-state solution isn’t working, neither side can agree to terms for a two-state solution, so that leaves a zero-state solution. The U.N. should draw new borders that divvy up the land between Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, then give the people who lived in Egypt and Palestine the option to become citizens of one of those surrounding nations or to take a free plane ticket and U-haul gift card and find somewhere else. I’m sort of joking. Sort of.

Specifically, to hell with Zionism (and whatever the Palestinian equivalent would be, though I don’t really think there is much of a Palestinian equivalent): just because your group of people has historically been persecuted doesn’t mean that you have a God-given right to control a city that has equal significance to multiple other major world religions. To Israel and the Jews specifically, news flash: there have been plenty of persecuted people groups throughout history, and while Hitler’s “final solution” was certainly among the most egregious genocides, that doesn’t give Jews de facto entitlement to Jerusalem. And not to go too far down the rabbit hole of who the Third Reich hated most, but while the Jews were the largest group persecuted by the Nazis, only about half of the people killed in concentration camps were Jewish, roughly six million. Of the eleven million people killed, the other five million was composed of political enemies, people with disabilities, homosexuals, gypsies, and others. Those groups aren’t clamoring for free countries, in fact, their stories are all too often forgotten. The point is, I don’t think anyone has a right to that land, whether based on some alleged ancestral claims, “divine right,” or as a consolation prize for various atrocities suffered by your people throughout history.

Also with regards to Zionism and the basic idea behind it, my general belief is that adhering strongly to labels and organizing your life around one aspect of your identity is just going to make it easier for people to stereotype and persecute you in the future, and that it also leads to groupthink and exclusivity issues. There’s a difference between people making conscious decisions to preserve their culture and choosing to separate themselves from everyone else, whether geographically or metaphorically. Whether you’re saying “all the jews should live in the same place,” “all the gays should wear rainbow colors (or pink triangles),” or “all the black people should ride in the same train car ‘separately but equally,’” separating yourself from the rest of the world is a recipe for disaster, whether it’s enforced by some institution or voluntary on the part of those being labeled. Forcing people into boxes based on their identities just doesn’t work out well.

Speaking of forcing people into boxes, let’s talk more specifically about what’s going on in Palestine and Israel right now. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the sufferings of the Palestinian people, but I think it’s safe to say that they don’t exactly enjoy the benefits of a functioning government that treats them as first class citizens. My understanding is that Hamas, which is undoubtedly a hostile terrorist organization, saw an opportunity in the mid-late 2000s to take control of the Gaza Strip and seized it. Since then, the Palestinian people have been living in a small, densely populated area that they aren’t allowed to leave (literally stuffed into a box), which is severely and intentionally underfunded and neglected by Israel, thanks to the racist, nationalist policies of Benjamin Netanyahoo, who doesn’t want them to have their own country nor be a part of his country.

Some point out that it’s not fair to blame all of Israel for the policies of one corrupt leader, but I would posit that it is certainly fair to note that a majority of the Israeli electorate continue to support Netanyahoo, and therefore must take some responsibility for the actions he takes.

We can’t ignore the large role of Hamas, though. It’s obviously not okay for them to be provoking Israel, even if they know most of their attempts will fail, because the attempts that don’t fail are going to result in rockets falling on civilians who may not have been responsible for Natenyahoo’s rise to power, or upon children who had no say at all. And Hamas also doesn’t have very much to lose: they don’t give a shit about the Palestinians who will die as a result of the Israeli response to their attacks. They’re well insulated by civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas, and they do use them as human shields. Unfortunately for Israel and Netanyahoo, human shields work, and you look like an asshole when you decide to murder a bunch of children because there might be one or two baddies hiding in a basement under their school. When you’re a real country, you have to do better than that. Israel is choosing not to.

So while both sides seem eager to escalate and keep firing shots at one another, it’s worth pointing out that Hamas is pouring red gas cans full of fuel on the fire while Israel is spraying it from a tanker truck. We also can’t forget that the Palestinian citizens don’t even have water balloons filled with gas, they’re almost entirely devoid of agency. You could argue that the Israeli people also don’t get any gasoline-filled water balloons, but they did get to choose who would drive their tanker truck, and they picked a nationalist, racist asshole, so, you know, cool. Still, it’s very difficult to overstate the power imbalance between a nation whose defense budget has been propped up by the American taxpayers for decades (we’re currently giving Israel three billion dollars PER YEAR) and a rag tag terrorist group in a tiny patch of land inhabited by a bunch of civilians who didn’t have a say about who’s in charge. Imagine a fight between Conor McGregor and Madison Cawthorne: Cawthorne is gonna talk mad shit but you know he’s getting his ass whooped easily. It’s not a fair fight. McGregor = Israel, Cawthorne = Palestine. Ha.

So, Israel is starting to look a lot like a fucking bully. Sure, the terrorists who happen to be in Palestine shot a shit ton of bush league missiles at you. How dare they. BUT, the Iron Dome missile defense system (which was paid for mostly by the American taxpayers) does a pretty damn good job of swatting all those missiles away like annoying flies. Sure, every now and again one will get through. That’s about the extent of what you’re allowed to respond to in retaliatory “defense of yourself” and still have your actions be considered proportional by the worldwide community. And if your response isn’t seen as proportional, then the conversation moves to whether you’re committing war crimes, and I don’t think that’s a conversation that a perpetual victim-state wants to be having. But it seems like maybe they do want to have it, because not only are they aggressively trying to take out “Hamas operatives,” they’re using that as an excuse to indiscriminately mow down Palestinian children, apartments, and buildings that house reporters from the Associated Press and Middle Eastern news networks. Donald Trump talked about the press being an enemy of the people, and Netanyahoo clearly drank that Kool-Aid, seeing as he’s now shooting fucking missiles at reporters. Oh yeah, in the name of “both sides,” it’s worth pointing out that the United States did not buy Palestine an Iron Dome.

I started with a pretty American approach to this, so I’ll conclude with my more un-American thoughts:

1. Even if we don’t have soldiers on the ground (and under no circumstances should we), we contribute to this problem by giving Israel a shit ton of money every year for defense and that needs to be cut off immediately. The American taxpayers don’t want to pay for our own unending wars, much less someone else’s.

2. History has shown us over and over again that the more time America spends in the sandbox, the worse things get for everyone involved. It’s not America’s job to police the globe, and it would take a massive amount of hubris (lookin’ at you, Kushner) on our part to think we’re going to solve this problem. This is not our business, not our problem, not our prerogative, not our fight. Again, we need to get the hell out of the Middle East and stay out.

3. Israel is just about as much of a terrorist organization these days as Hamas, what with the whole blowing-up-journalists-and-children thing. Plus apartheid, that’s not ideal. I see no real reason for our alliance with Israel at this point. If they want to act like savages, we don’t need to be friends.

4. Zionism is stupid, regressive, and unsustainable.

5. Either the U.N. can step in with a zero-state solution, or there will be no real solution at all and we can just get used to hearing Israel/Palestine drama for the rest of our lives.

This was a pretty packed event, especially for the spring. Apple announced (or teased) several updates to services, included the ability for users to share an Apple Card account and a new podcasts service. When it comes to hardware, we got updates in four major categories, from Apple TV to iMac, and the introduction of a cool new accessory. Let’s get to it.

iPhone 12

The only update here is that the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini now come in a purple color, which happens to look nicer in photos than it does in person. It’s not the same purple from the iPhone 11, and it isn’t great, in my opinion. It’s a little darker but also a bit dull.

Apple TV

The Apple TV certainly deserved some attention. Unfortunately, it didn’t get much. The only difference in the actual Apple TV hardware seems to be that they swapped 2016’s A10 chip for 2018’s A12. They did update the remote, though, and fortunately you can purchase it separately to use with any Apple TV released since 2015. I particularly like the remote’s iPod-esque click wheel functionality, but it still doesn’t seem like as great of a remote as Apple could come up with. It still has the confusingly similar “back” and “home” buttons that I never know how to choose between when trying to back through the operating system.

iPad Pro

The big story here is that the iPad Pro lineup is now powered by the Apple M1 chip, the same Apple-designed processor used in most of the Mac lineup. The decision to put the M1 chip in the iPad Pro took me a bit by surprise, but it’s not so shocking when you consider how hard Apple has tried in the past few years to convince us that the iPad Pro can replace your computer. It certainly seems to be more powerful, but the 2018 iPad Pro still kicks ass. The 2020 update was just a slight speed bump and a LiDAR Scanner. The 2021 iPad Pro is another speed bump (and an impressive new display, in the 12.9” model) to the same basic device from 2018, which is just as powerful today as it was three years ago.

If Apple wants to make the iPad Pro replace your computer, what they need to do is rejuvenate iPadOS with more powerful capabilities. The reason people aren’t switching to iPads instead of Macs or PCs isn’t because they’re underpowered, it’s because they don’t give you a way to harness all their power like you can with a laptop.

iMac

The new iMacs have an an absolutely stunning form factor. The thinness is incredible: thinner than two iPhones stacked on top of each other. But it isn’t perfect. My biggest complaints are the fact that it still has a chin (with no logo, curiously) and the color choices they made. I’m not mad that it comes in colors, and I like that they roughly tried to match the colors of the retro Apple logo. But the shades are weird; why would they pick a green with so much of a blue tint, a color that’s so dissimilar to the yellow that fits right beside it in the lineup; why is the red one called pink instead of red; why is the orange so similar to the pink; why do they all have that hideous two-tone thing going on where they have a beautiful, vibrant color on the back, and a gross, pale color on the stand, chin, and peripherals? They should’ve stuck with the same color for the whole machine, and picked colors that are a little more equidistant from one another on the color wheel. As far as the lack of a gray or black option, I think we’ll just have to wait for Apple to release a “Pro”-grade desktop for that.

When it comes to the actual performance and specs though, Apple has left nothing to be desired. The M1 blows the old iMacs out of the water, and they have larger displays than the smaller Intel iMacs they replace (I assume we’re going to get a larger “Pro” desktop later this year to replace the 27” Intel iMacs). Touch ID on the keyboard is fantastic and long awaited.

I’m not much of a desktop guy, but these make me wish I were.

AirTags

It’s been a long time coming, but they’re finally here. If you haven’t heard, AirTags are a brand new accessory from Apple that you can attach to items you might lose or misplace, and in that case, you can use your iPhone to locate the AirTag and find your item.

They’re totally private, but they make use of all the iPhones in the world to find your stuff. Basically, if you leave an AirTag somewhere or it gets taken, anytime someone who has an iPhone comes within bluetooth range of your AirTag, their iPhone will (unbeknownst to them) recognize your AirTag and note its location so that you get frequently updated data on where your AirTag is located. You can also use an iPhone 11 or newer to get specific, guided instructions on how to find your nearby AirTag with a mode they call Precision Finding, where your iPhone will tell you exactly how many feet away your AirTag is, and in what direction. If all that doesn’t work, you can make it play a sound to help you find it even faster. Again, Apple has made sure that this all happens in a totally private way, so that AirTag owners, other iPhone owners, nor Apple themselves actually get any location data that can be associated with any of the individuals involved.

They only cost $29 for a single AirTag, or you can get four for $99, and they offer free engraving. They also offer some nice accessories, I really like the saddle brown leather keychain.

Also check out CopyrightBro’s full AirTag review, which will be published later this week.

“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” was released over a month ago to incredible fanfare, immediately breaking records. Though, at this point, it’s fair to point out that Taylor could release an EP of herself covering some of Barney the dinosaur’s hit musical numbers and probably still manage to break at least one or two records. But alas, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” did extremely well in its first week, (though it understandably dropped off a bit the following week; these are, after all, thirteen year old songs that just about everyone on earth has already heard and probably knows the lyrics to), coming at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and claiming the title of biggest country music album release of the past six years.

WELL WELL WELL you all really went out and left my greatest expectations in shambles this week.😆 Word on the street is you made Fearless (my version) the biggest country album 1st week of the last 6 years & the top release of 2021 so far. Honestly?? How?? Did I get this lucky??

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 16, 2021

My Notes

I won’t go song by song for the entire album since we’ve had most of these songs for years, but I will offer a few thoughts on the album as a whole. First off, Taylor’s vocals have really improved and matured a lot. The rerecorded songs sound almost identical to the originals, but they go down smoother. Most people who hear these songs on the radio or in public probably won’t notice a difference, but if you listen for it, you can tell. The song that might be the most noticeably different is “You Belong With Me,” and it’s still pretty true to the original.

On another note, I was really glad she got Colbie Caillat back for “Breathe,” and I hope the rest of the featured artists will come back for the other albums. I’m sure Ed Sheeran will reappear for “Red” and “Reputation,” but I do wonder whether artists like Gary Lightbody, Future, and The Civil Wars will come back around.

It was a really novel idea to give fans new songs “from the vault” that Taylor had from back in the day. Even if they weren’t included 13 years ago because they weren’t great, she’s had plenty of time to rethink them and polish them up a bit, and her fans will still eat them up. It was a fun, unique way to get people excited for an album they’d already heard, and it’s a great example of why her fans are so dedicated and loyal: she really goes out of her way to make them happy.

The Vault, Song by Song:

As usual, I’ve given each song two ratings out of ten, the first rating is how I felt about it after the first time I listened to it, the second is how I feel about it after more listens and some time to process each track. The titles are a little long, but I don’t make the rules. If I’d been through all that shit with the record companies, I’d probably put my name on every song I own, too.

“You All Over Me (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat. Maren Morris]”: 8/10, 6.5/10

Maren Morris is more or less nonexistent on this track, which is fine by me. It is a good song, but a little bit more grown up than the rest of “Fearless.” It definitely sounds like Taylor, I just don’t know that it sounds like 2008 Taylor.

“Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 7.5/10, 8.5/10

“Mr. Perfectly Fine” just fits with the rest of fearless so… perfectly. It has that youthful naivety that made Taylor’s first few albums feel so genuine. The bridge is phenomenal. It absolutely should’ve made the album in 2008. Really the only thing I don’t like about it is the very last line.

“We Were Happy (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 3/10, 4/10

A bit bland, honestly. Quite forgettable. I think it tries too hard to be country, talking about buying a farm and whatnot. Probably my least favorite vault song.

“That’s When (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat. Keith Urban]”: 5.5/10, 5.5/10

This one is solid. Keith Urban was a nice touch, though maybe just a little less of him would’ve been fine. The song is good background listening, but I can see why it was left of the original album; I don’t think the lyrics actually make a ton of sense.

“Don’t You (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 4/10, 5.5/10

The general theme for the vault songs that weren’t released before the rest of the rerecorded Fearless album (so not including “You All Over Me” and “Mr. Perectly Fine”) is that you can sort of see why they weren’t included in 2008. This one fits that theme. It’s easy listening and it’s good background music, and while the lyrics do sound like something Taylor started writing back in the day, the final version of the song sounds a little too modern to fit with the rest of “Fearless.” I don’t dislike it, though, and I think it has potential to grow on me.

“Bye Bye Baby (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 6/10, 4/10

I’m a little bored with the vault songs by the time I get to “Bye Bye Baby.” Again, it’s not bad, it just sort of blends in with the rest of them.

The Bottom Line

This album is absolutely excellent, and the songs from the vault are just icing on the cake. It’s hard to imagine a more faithfully executed re-recording of the original “Fearless” than what Taylor has given us in her version. I will have no problem at all listening to these new tracks instead of the old ones, and I’m glad Taylor chose to make the principled and tedious decision to go through with the re-recordings. I can’t wait for the rest.

Lauren Feiner and Salvador Rodriguez, reporting for CNBC:

Facebook’s independent oversight board ruled Wednesday to uphold the company’s January decision to suspend the Facebook and Instagram accounts of former President Donald Trump.

Facebook seemingly doing something good? Nah, you know there’s a “but” coming:

But, the board said, the indefinite time frame of the suspension “was not appropriate.” The board effectively punted the decision on the length of the suspension back to Facebook, saying it “insists” the company “review this matter to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform.”

This is good news for now, but don’t count on the decision from this “independent oversight board”* to last for very long. I’d bet a thousand dollars that Zuckerberg comes up with some bullshit excuse to allow him back on the platform before 2023, and probably by the end of this year. The only thing that drives Zuck is profit, engagement drives profit, and Donald Trump drives engagement.

*Calling this entity an ”independent oversight board” is laughable. It’s basically a new arm of Facebook, paid by Facebook, to issue faux ethical positions on decisions made by Facebook proper.

#deletefacebook

Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard:

While I was on a Google Hangouts call with a colleague, the hacker sent me screenshots of my Bumble and Postmates accounts, which he had broken into. Then he showed he had received texts that were meant for me that he had intercepted. Later he took over my WhatsApp account, too, and texted a friend pretending to be me.

Looking down at my phone, there was no sign it had been hacked. […] But the hacker had swiftly, stealthily, and largely effortlessly redirected my text messages to themselves. And all for just $16.

I hadn't been SIM swapped, where hackers trick or bribe telecom employees to port a target's phone number to their own SIM card. Instead, the hacker used a service by a company called Sakari, which helps businesses do SMS marketing and mass messaging, to reroute my messages to him. This overlooked attack vector shows not only how unregulated commercial SMS tools are but also how there are gaping holes in our telecommunications infrastructure, with a hacker sometimes just having to pinky swear they have the consent of the target.

Sure, the carriers have patched this flaw now, but how many others exist? SMS is and has always been an inherently unsafe way to communicate.

Two things to take away from this:

1. Two-factor authentication using SMS is only going to stop the laziest, stupidest “hackers.”

2. SMS messages are on the verge of being publicly available, and you should use an encrypted messaging service (iMessage, Signal, etc.)

Filipe Espósito, reporting for 9to5Mac:

WhatsApp recently introduced new privacy policies for its users, which includes new terms ensuring that the app will share data with Facebook as a condition of use. Although this was postponed at first, WhatsApp will now disable some app functionalities until users accept the new privacy terms.

WhatsApp was the longtime holdout among Facebook’s three main platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) when it came to maintining some of their original identity and palatable privacy practices, but the sun is finally setting on WhatsApp. I’m frankly surprised it took this long, and I’m sure it won’t be too much longer before they start talking about getting rid of end-to-end encryption.

#deletefacebook

From the Signal blog:

Companies like Facebook aren’t building technology for you, they’re building technology for your data. They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives.

This isn’t exactly a secret, but the full picture is hazy to most – dimly concealed within complex, opaquely-rendered systems and fine print designed to be scrolled past. The way most of the internet works today would be considered intolerable if translated into comprehensible real world analogs, but it endures because it is invisible.

However, Facebook’s own tools have the potential to divulge what is otherwise unseen. It’s already possible to catch fragments of these truths in the ads you’re shown; they are glimmers that reflect the world of a surveilling stranger who knows you. We wanted to use those same tools to directly highlight how most technology works. We wanted to buy some Instagram ads.

We created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook was not into that idea.

Facebook is more than willing to sell visibility into people’s lives, unless it’s to tell people about how their data is being used. Being transparent about how ads use people’s data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook’s world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you’re doing from your audience.

Shamelessly hypocritical. Facebook is fine with your data being distributed, sold, and leaked to just about anyone on the planet, just so long as it isn’t you.

#deletefacebook

Sami Fathi, reporting for MacRumors:

Over the next two years, Apple will transition its Mac lineup away from Intel processors to its own Apple silicon chips. Apple is already well underway on the transition, having released three Mac computers based on its M1 SoC. Intel in response launched a marketing campaign last week to label Macs and ‌M1‌ as inferior to Intel processors.

Despite the barrage of attacks, Gelsinger has indicated that he hopes to have Apple as a future customer.

Coming on the heels of Apple absolutely eating Intel’s lunch with the M1’s performance and versatility, and then Intel’s tactless ad campaign against Apple, this shit is just embarrassing. It sure looks like Intel is a ship on fire.

These fuckers are absolutely shameless. Rather than putting forth any meaningful effort to actually prevent data leaks from their surveillance network, they just want to convince you that it’s something you’ll have to live with and not really a big deal. It’s just a part of their larger to plan to keep user’s from realizing how much value all the data Facebook steals from them really holds.

#deletefacebook

Wow. Internal facebook memo regarding the recent breach leaked to @Pieterjanvl:
👉 If we stop talking about it, FB will NOT provide more info
👉 FB wants to FRAME and normalize ONGOING scraping
👉 FB wants to avoid criticism on them NOT being transparenthttps://t.co/8XlcJarcAg pic.twitter.com/qAogft4MVi

— Inti De Ceukelaire (@intidc) April 20, 2021