The blackouts that had no impact on revenue and would totally blow over in a few days appear to not have blown over and are impacting revenue enough to warrant forcing them open.

Which is it fuck-u-spez?

I run my own file host: kimiga.aishitei.ru. Files get uploaded from clipboard using ShareX. This allows me to have control over my own files, how long they last or if they should last forever, and I'm not dependent on a benevolent developer preventing my links from rotting 8 years from now when they close down their host due to it costing them too much or simply because they got bored of being a sysadmin/dealing with issues (or users) of their site.

I used to donate to pomf.se and used that as the image host because I was a supporter of the sysadmin - but it eventually grew too large and had to shut down. Then a bunch of pomf.se clones popped up and I used one of those - can't remember which one but then that one shut down too after only a year. That's when I decided to set up my own host.

I don't allow other users on the site because I don't feel like having to deal with what users upload, DMCA requests, morally gray areas, etc.

.ru domains are sometimes blocked so my backup is catbox.moe

I actually agree. Nobody explains DNS to people trying to understand how mail works. They don't need to understand MX records, SPF records, DMARC, DKIM, or anything. All they need to know is sign up and how to use the To: field to start sending emails. Hell - you don't even need to and probably don't want to explain the purpose of the CC or BCC fields at this point either.

If a user is trying to actually understand the underlying technology then the email analogy can be a first introduction. But if someone is technical enough to be trying to learn it's better to just teach them about ActivityPub.

Since you didn't notice that in that post /u/parentis_shotgun claims to have made Jerboa and links to it - which links to github.com/dessalines/jerboa - you're not very observant so I'll provide you with some alternative posts as evidence.

Step 1) Visit /u/parentis_shotgun's profile

Step 2) Old PgDn to load some posts. Find the one that says nothing but "Yes" on it. This post specifically.

Step 3) Click Context to see which question it is answering

Step 4) Read the question: "Wait a second, are you the same dessalines that narrated my The State and Revolution by Lenin and Fascism: What it is and how to fight it by Trotsky?"

Step 5) See /u/parentis_shotgun's response: "Yes."

"Misinformation".

What exactly do you get out of defending Tankies?

E:

Alternative route #1: Find parentis_shotgun's post about creating thumb-key - a privacy-conscious Android keyboard made for your thumbs. Notice it links to a Github profile for dessalines.

Alternative route #2: Find this post where they keep their "communist 101s" on dessalines.github.io/essays/

I'm ready

The one benefit of ziq being an anarchist extremist is that his article is probably one of the least biased things you'll read against modern Tankies who try to hide behind their support of culturally progressive politics to defend their ideology and make it seem like they're good people. Because it's a critique from someone who is just as left-wing as they claim to be so they can't hide behind their usual excuse of the critic being pro-capitalism/anti-communism/culturally conservative because ziq is none of those things.

I second this article as a fantastic overview of what Tankies stand for and why they should not be tolerated. If the article is too long to sift through - one particular paragraph summarizes the main issue with Tankies:

Tankies celebrate Lenin and Trotsky's massacres of socialist revolutionaries, including the Mensheviks, the sailors of Petrograd, the Socialist Revolutionaries, the anarchists, unaffiliated peasants who had their food confiscated and so on. Tankies also celebrate murdering 'kulaks', a word they use to describe any peasant that resisted Soviet imperialism, but especially the Ukrainian peasants that resisted sending all their food to Russia, which they rightly guessed would lead to mass-starvation and one of the worst atrocities in history; the catastrophic Holodomor man-made famine.

The Holodomor is largely considered to be a genocide of the Ukrainian people - by 26 countries and the European Parliament. Tankies deny it ever happened, and if it did it wasn't their fault, and if it was their fault the kulaks deserved it.

Another phrase for Tankie ideology is Red Fascism.

I'd specifically like to highlight that someone who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp - so has firsthand experience with a fascist regime - described the Soviets as the following, emphasis mine:

Kurt Schumacher, who was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, but survived WWII to become the first post-war SPD opposition leader in West Germany, described pro-Soviet communists as "red-painted fascists" or "red-lacquered Nazis"

So in what ways exactly is a tankie not a fascist?

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

that exalts nation

"We did not hesitate to shoot thousands of people, and we shall not hesitate, and we shall save the country." - Vladimir Lenin

often race

https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor

that stands for a centralized autocratic government

The State

headed by a dictatorial leader

Lenin;Stalin

severe economic and social regimentation

Five year plan

forcible suppression of opposition

Cheka secret police.

If Tankies are not fascists - then neither were Nazi's.

Well of course they aren't genocide deniers. You can't deny something that never happened. Also note that they did not deny being Tankies - they denied being Fascists. Tankies don't recognize themselves as Fascists and will vehemently deny that they are. Here's another phrase for Tankie for the uninformed: Red Fascist

Here is one of the Lemmy devs denying that the Uyghur genocide in China is happening:

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xq49ct/deleted_by_user/iq954mu/

The Uyghur genocide is as real as white genocide. - Source

Here they are again denying it:

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xq49ct/deleted_by_user/iq951cv/

The holocaust was a genocide that actually happened, with all the evidence that goes along with it. There is no Uyghur genocide.

Do you believe in anything as soon as the word "genocide" gets attached to it? What about "white genocide"? Are you a white genocide denier? - Source

And just so nobody can deny that parentis_shotgun is a Lemmy dev: - "I'm one of the devs of Lemmy"

Direct links to the posts will not work but still exist on the user's profile page: https://old.reddit.com/user/parentis_shotgun/ - hold PgDn until comments stop loading then Control+F. In fact feel free to peruse their history in general - it's quite interesting.

One of my favorite posts is their defense of the government of North Korea in /r/AskTankies: https://old.reddit.com/r/asktankies/comments/tb1836/okay_but_dprk_seriously/i04d1wu/

Now ask yourself why would someone who is not a Red Fascist Tankie piece of shit be answering questions on behalf of Tankies in /r/AskTankies while defending a totalitarian regime? Is it... perhaps because they're in support of such a regime because they are in fact a Tankie piece of shit?

They also lied about the "single user on Mastadon not providing sources". They did provide sources. The source were things said straight out of the dev's mouth.

Let's play a game of spot the difference between fascists (nazis) and fascists (tankies).

Nazis: Fascists who are directly responsible for the deaths of an estimated 12,000,000 people. Deny a genocide ever took place despite evidence to the contrary (Holocaust). Antisemites who forced minority ethnic groups to work in forced concentration and labor camps and starved them to death. These concentration camps began in 1933 and ended in 1945 lasting for a period of 12~ years. Had a secret police known as the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) whose job it was largely to suppress political opposition by any means necessary including execution of dissenters and spy on behalf of the Nazi party. Torture and execution were common - including that of women and children.

Tankies: Fascists who are directly responsible for the deaths an estimated 26,000,000 people. Deny multiple different genocides ever took place despite evidence to the contrary (Holodomor being the most well known). Antisemites who forced minority ethnic groups to work in forced concentration and labor camps and starved them to death. This Gulag network of death prisons began in 1919 and only ended after Stalin's death in 1953 lasting for a period of 34~ years. Had a secret police known as the Чека (Cheka) whose job it was to suppress political opposition by any means necessary including execution of dissenters and spy on behalf of the State. Torture and execution were common - including that of women and children.

I'm sure there would be zero abuse of this functionality to harass pro or publicly out LGBT moderators and remove them from their positions.

It can make such broad claims because it's entirely based on facts. VPN's are a trust-based system where the only evidence they don't keep logs prior to getting a court order is "Trust us bro" and, historically, more of these services have been found to actually be storing records (or legally must store 30/60 days worth depending on their country of origin) than not.

If you would like a more in-depth and thorough explanation as a technical breakdown for non-technical people there is this blog post or even this blog if the "TL;DR" explanation didn't cut it for you.

Regarding profit motives of VPN's - see also:

• https://www.skadligkod.se/vpn/the-trustworthy-of-vpn-review-sites-and-how-affiliate-programs-affects-their-opinion/
• https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/

Here's a real fun one!

This site: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/choosing-the-best-vpn-for-you/ was purchased and now redirects to this site: https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-vpns/

Safety Detectives was purchased by non-other than drum roll please. Kape Technologies. How do I know this? Well let's take a look at the Wayback Machine for TOPS.net.

What was the original claim?

You may have started your search for a VPN by looking for “VPN Reviews” in your search engine of choice. if you had, you would have gotten page upon page of what seem to be harmless review sites, top 10 or blog style reviews of different VPN services. You may even be coming here for confirmation of what you were told on those sites. The sites making these recommendations are, in almost every case, paid by the services they review and recommend.

Who owns PIA, ExpressVPN, and CyberGhost? The "best 3 VPN's" recommended by safetydetectives.com? Kape Technologies.

Why should this concern you?

We'll start with PIA's owner, Kape Technologies. Kape Technologies was formerly known as Crossrider before it was acquired by one Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire that has spent time in jail for insider trading. Crossrider itself never had that great a reputation itself, what with their primary product being a development platform through which they were frequently used by third parties to invade ad platforms to serve up malware, but whatever. Once acquired, the entire leadership structure was hollowed out, and the new Kape Technologies went on an acquisition spree. All of Kape's purchased review sites suggest Kape owned VPN's with "some consideration" given to Nord and Proton to maintain some kind of pretense at neutrality.

In short: Sagi is shady, his business is shady, and his business moves are shady, which makes the whole thing shady from top to bottom. Kape Technologies isn't the only company to go on an acquisition spree for VPN's either. Ask yourself why there is interest in consolidating VPN providers and how that data might be useful.

Every single modern VPN is a honeypot until proven otherwise. Mullvad is one of the few that has been able to prove otherwise.

I disagree: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

For most people a VPS would be cheaper and meet their actual needs.

A small suggestion, only because using monthly prices sometimes makes things seem even cheaper than they are. Change it from $Monthly Cost to $Monthly Cost ($Annual Cost). For example instead of $11/mo for Apple Music it would be $11 ($132) and instead of $33 it would be $33 ($396).

Doing this caused me to re-evaluate a number of monthly subscriptions I had, find cheaper (sometimes even free/"good enough") alternatives. Other times it would make me realize I should update annual charges if it was available if it was something I planned to keep around anyway and the annual price was a good enough deal. It also causes you to re-evaluate which price tier you pay for. Like for Nitro - do you really need the extra perks for $84/yr or do you only actually care about emotes and slightly larger file uploads and the $3/mo Basic package would be good enough? Often times people go "Oh it's only $7/mo difference anyway" and get the better package but don't actually use the extra features they're paying for.