Mauve 👁💜 @mauve@mastodon.mauve.moe

Imagine being a young singer in 2010, going to a music school and having them spend more than half the class time on responsible use of autotune.

You tell them you're not singing into microphones at all right now and you don't have a computer, you actually want to learn about scales, reading music, warm-ups, how to engage the diaphragm, voice box anatomy and building out a repertoire.

They tell you that before any of that you must learn how to use autotune properly and how not to use it, otherwise you'll be left behind.

All the exams are primarily testing that you're not using autotune to 'cheat'. You're not sure what you would use it to cheat at or what other thing you should be doing, because the only thing you've been shown how to do is interact with autotune. None of the teachers seem to know how autotune fits into singing, but they know it's equally naughty for students to use it and to refuse to use it.

This is what uni in 2026 is like.

A 12 year old child in the United States or Canada and arguably in many other countries can get the highest level of a ham radio license and theoretically build or service a 1500 watt tube amplifier. This exposes them to lethal voltages. They are however forbidden from participating in “social media”.

The problem isn’t the children, it’s the tech bro billionaires and their non stop harvesting of your data.

It is the year 2026, and in order to buy a BrailleNote evolve and to get my SensePlayer repaired, I have to give AT companies my credit card number over the phone. I am being told by an AT company that their system is "encrypted and secure," yet they don't have a way to send a simple payment link for a repair. My freshly minted cybersecurity degree is absolutely screaming at the thought of transmitting raw cardholder data over an unencrypted voice line, but sure, let's pretend oral tradition is a valid compliance framework. And, because they don't support a standard and accessible online payment portal that I could just use independently with a screen reader, I now have to spend the next few days arranging for a sighted person to help me read my non-brailled physical credit card details just so I can call a rep and read them out loud. Nothing says "we specialize in independence for the blind" quite like forcing a blind customer to compromise both their financial security and their autonomy just to pay for an essential hardware repair.

More than 200k users said NO!

More than 70 organisations signed a letter saying NO!

#FDroid wrote posts on why NOT!

We've talked with you and your representatives, around the world.

We've made the #KeepAndroidOpen website to explain it.

If you read the #Android tech news, you saw it.

If you use a search engine, you found it.

If you've asked their own #Gemini, you got the summary.

But who didn't see, hear or read anything from above? Yes, #Google

For your saftety? https://f-droid.org/2026/07/01/adv-malware.html

"I shouldn't have to be decent, you should be tough" is such a meaningful measure of a human.

You don't have to. That's the entire premise. Your body doesn't force you to be kind in order to keep you alive. It's optional. You can choose to be decent and respected or not and not.

No one is holding a gun to your head ordering you to be likable.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/116841255596329539

WELP, I find old.reddit.com the only way reddit is palatable; and I don't login to reddit.com anymore. So I guess it's going to be dead to me.