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#Conspiracies
Just saw some guys on /x/ claim that F1NN5TER’s coming out was orchestrated by the Greys
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An Epic antitrust loss for Google
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A jury just found Google guilty on all counts of antitrust violations stemming from its dispute with Epic, maker of Fortnite, which brought a variety of claims related to how Google runs its app marketplace. This is huge:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/technology/epic-games-google-antitrust-ruling.html
The mobile app store world is a duopoly run by Google and Apple. Both use a variety of tactics to prevent their customers from installing third party app stores, which funnels all app makers into their own app stores. Those app stores cream an eye-popping 30% off every purchase made in an app.
This is a shocking amount to charge for payment processing. The payments sector is incredibly monopolized and notorious for its price-gouging – and its standard (wildly inflated) rate is 2-5%:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping
Now, in theory, Epic doesn't have to sell in Google Play, the official Android app store. Unlike Apple's iOS, Android permit both sideloading (installing an app directly without using an app store) and configuring your device to use a different app store. In practice, Google uses a variety of anticompetitive tricks to prevent these app stores from springing up and to dissuade Android users from sideloading. Proving that Google's actions – like paying Activision $360m as part of "Project Hug" (no, really!) – were intended to prevent new app storesfrom springing up was a big lift for Epic. But they managed it, in large part thanks to Google's own internal communications, wherein executives admitted that this was exactly why Project Hug existed. This is part of a pattern with Big Tech antitrust: many of the charges are theoretically very hard to make stick, but because the companies put their evil plans in writing (think of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX, whose top execs all conferred in a groupchat called "Wirefraud"), Big Tech keeps losing in court:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/
Now, I do like to dunk on Big Tech for this kind of thing, because it's objectively funny and because the companies make so many unforced errors. But in an important sense, this kind of written record is impossible to avoid. Any large institution can only make and enact policy through administrative systems, and those systems leave behind a paper-trail: memos, meeting minutes, etc. Yes, we all know that quote from The Wire: "Is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" But inevitably, any ambitious conspiracy can only exist if someone is taking notes.
What's more, any large conspiracy involving lots of parties will inevitably produce leaks. Think of this as the corollary to the idea that the moon landing can't be a hoax, because there's no way 400,000 co-conspirators could keep the secret. Big Tech's conspiracies required hundreds or even thousands of collaborators to keep their mouths shut, and eventually someone blabs:
https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-moon-landing-you-d-need-400000-conspirators
This is part of a wave of antitrust cases being brought against the tech giants. As Matt Stoller writes, the guilty-on-all-counts jury verdict will leak into current and future actions. Remember, Google spent much of this year in court fighting the DoJ, who argued that the company bribed Apple not to make a competing search engine, paying tens of billions every year to keep a competitor from emerging. Now that a jury has convinced Google of doing that to prevent alternative app stores from emerging, claims that it used these pay-for-delay tactics in other sectros get a lot more credible:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-google-loses-antitrust-case
On that note: what about Apple? Epic brought a very similar case against Apple and lost. Both Apple and Epic are appealing that case to the Supreme Court, and now that Google has been convicted in a similar case, it might prompt the Supremes to weigh in and resolve the seeming inconsistencies in the interpretation of federal law.
This is a key moment in the long project to wrest antitrust away from the pro-monopoly side, who spent decades "training" judges to produce verdicts that run counter to the plain language of America's antitrust law:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down
There's 40 years' worth of bad precedent to overturn. The good news is that we've got the law on our side. Literally, the wording of the laws and the records of the Congressional debate leading to their passage, all militate towards the (incredibly obvious) conclusion that the purpose of anti-monopoly law is to fight monopoly, not defend it:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men
It's amazing to realize that we got into this monopoly quagmire because judges just literally refused to enforce the law. That's what makes one part of the jury verdict against Google so exciting: the jury found that Google's insistence that Play Store sellers use its payment processor was an act of illegal tying. Today, "tying" is an obscure legal theory, but few doctrines would be more useful in disenshittifying the internet. A company is guilty of illegal tying when it forces you to use unrelated products or services as a condition of using the product you actually want. The abandonment of tying led to a host of horribles, from printer companies forcing you to buy ink at $10,000/gallon to Livenation forcing venues to sell tickets through its Ticketmaster subsidiary.
The next phase of this comes when the judge decides on the penalty. Epic doesn't want cash damages – it wants the judge to order Google to fulfill its promise of "an open, competitive Android ecosystem for all users and industry participants." They've asked the judge to order Google to facilitate third-party app stores, and to separate app stores from payment processors. As Stoller puts it, they want to "crush Google’s control over Android":
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-v-google-trial-verdict-a-win-for-all-developers
Google has sworn to appeal, surprising no one. The Times's expert says that they will have a tough time winning, given how clear the verdict was. Whatever this means for Google and Android, it means a lot for a future free from monopolies.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger
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sturniolo-conspiracy · 3 months
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YALL
hear me out
anti-laura conspiracy:
- lack of madi in videos. started after hawaii trip, a trip laura took them on. weird.
- two tours in a year. i believe the boys love them but laura made bank and i'm tired of pretending she didn't
- Laura's christmas tree. why are the triplets on her tree? why not audrey hope or trilly any of her other clients? why *just* the sturniolos?
- she moved them into her house. she had a 16 year old daughter and moved three 17/18 year old boys into the same house, because that's safe and normal for a boss to do with their employees??
- Matt's deleted tiktoks. he posts something and deletes it a few hours later - why? well if a video doesn't stay up, no one makes money off of it.
- speaking of matt's videos, the one he posted today seemed weird - "you'll never find someone like me again", and he said basically, "thank god". bro hasn't been in a relationship in a while, and he dosnt rly post # relatable content, so if it wasn't about a potential gf or situationship, could it possible be about a conversation he and laura had?
- Chris's account getting banned. kid hasn't posted anything in two months and his account disappears. no i don't buy it. i think he knew this was a good way to make sure no one could profit off of his content. i'm not sure what strings he pulled but kid knew about this i promise. (notice how he changed the pfp of his second account last week too???? boyfriend of mine, make it make sense)
- random warehouse clean out? you could chalk it up to the end of the year yadda yadda yadda but i think they cleaned it out because they're not planning to stay there. (they co-own the warehouse with laura and madi - all five names are on the lease/contract) also nick said in a tiktok comment that he put sticky notes in some of the orders, and in the photodump we saw matt helping with shipment - they've never been so hands on before, this is brand new stuff.
- todays video (jan 5th) had a few more mature topics in it. is it possible their previous content got a bit censored?
- i don't like laura lol
EDIT: as of 1-6-24, matt archived all his tiktoks except the one about how he loves autumn. also to clear up any confusion, chris's second account is on instagram, not tiktok. go to their brothers instagram, fakejustincarey, and search his folowing for "christopher". it should come up as christophersturniolo2
EDIT 2: as of 1-6-24, nick archived over 500 of his tiktoks.
EDIT 3: matt's tiktoks are back (1-7-24)
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fuggnuckets · 9 months
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They praised Cuties
They stayed silent on Weinstein for decades
They hung around with Epstein
They defended Polanski
They ignored Balenciaga
But they actively attack sound of freedom because the film based on a true story “supports dangerous conspiracies”
Hollywood is doing a real good fucking job at disproving the conspiracies
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mysharona1987 · 3 months
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I will give the Catholic Church some shit, and deservedly so, but they likely gave the coordinates to the IDF to protect the Christians and nuns there involved. You know, avoid them.
Not that it makes what is happening to innocent Muslims any better. But they probably did think: “Hey, at least they won’t go after actual nuns.”
Then this happened.
And now we are about to hear Idf members claim elderly nuns were Hamas members and a threat to them.
Because 87 year old Sister Mary Agnes knows how to handle an assault weapon and fight like John Wick all of a sudden.
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notwhatiam · 1 year
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With this amazing gift from @missroserose, plus the Shakespeare magnet poetry set I already had, I can finally achieve my goal of writing conspiracy theories in iambic pentameter.
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thatmezuzaluvr · 1 month
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Goyim, take a few minutes and watch this video.
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nobodysdaydreams · 3 months
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PSA: the bots are getting sneaky
Hey guys just fyi, I haven’t seen anything about this, but I don’t get a follower notification when a bot follows me anymore.
My follower count will magically go up, but my activity doesn’t notify me of being followed by them. But when I click on my list of followers, there they all are.
At first I thought this was an issue with my tumblr specifically, but I still get notified when other people follow me, so I think that the bots just found a work around.
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megabuild · 6 months
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amish etho is my personal conspiracy theory. his lack of knowledge for a lot of pop culture, mispronouncing words (rhythm.) because he never heard them before because he was only allowed to read books. he does a lot of physical jobs in his real life (as opposed to hiring a professional). OBVIOUSLY etho's family was formerly amish and moved out of that lifestyle when etho was young and he assimilated pretty well but not good enoguh. i see you amish etho. its either that or autism
.
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generaljenobi · 30 days
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debruhbot5000 · 4 months
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Whenever anyone asks Wes Weston, Amity Parks local conspiracy theorist, his thoughts on literally anything.
Dash: What the fuck is this kid doing?
Wes: THE VOICES!
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racefortheironthrone · 2 months
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Maybe this is too broad, but wondering if there's a better term than "conspiracy theorist" to describe some large figures in the ongoing national discourse? Not that "fluoride in the drinking crowd" were serious thinkers or total harmless, but am I alone is finding "conspiracy theory" too quaint and mild to describe how mainstream rather fringe these things are and also how totally evidence-free and something just plain dumb they can also be?
I don’t think conspiracy theories have ever been quaint and mild.
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Think about the history of antisemitism from medieval blood libels to 19th century theories of Jewish financial cabals to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” dreamed up by Tsarist agents-provocateur that took the theory global and spawned untold numbers of imitators, to Hitler’s invention of “Judeo-Bolshevism” that married traditional antisemitism to anti-Communism and nationalist populism. Conspiracy theories one and all, but fully capable of spawning pogroms and fascist dictatorships.
Likewise, we think of Anti-Masonic or Illuminati conspiracy theories as self-evidently ridiculous and harmless, but we forget that they were used by cultural conservatives in church and state to wage culture wars on the Enlightenment, liberalism, secularism, democracy, every revolution from America to France to 1848 and beyond, feminism and almost every social movement of the 18th and 19th century. People died or were surveilled or were sent to prison, political parties were formed or banned, and conservatism itself was founded in the name of “poisoning the minds of the lower orders” to inoculate them from the influence of secret societies.
As Dan Olsen has shown, even seemingly benign conspiracy theories like the JFK assassination cover-up or the Moon landing was faked or the earth is flat can hide much more malign motivations, just waiting for the opportunity to radicalize and proselytize:
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bootleg-nessie · 13 days
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The issue I have with most conspiracy theorists is that they ignore the actual conspiracies right in front them in favor of the most batshit crazy alt right talking points
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anthroxlove · 1 month
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What comes to mind when you think of Amber Heard? Liar? Survivor? Narcissist? Millions of us watched the celebrity trial of the century, Depp v Heard, in 2022. Amber Heard lost and Johnny Depp was vindicated. But what if Amber was actually the victim of an organised trolling campaign? What if the online hate against her was manufactured? Alexi Mostrous, the reporter who brought you Sweet Bobby and Hoaxed, investigates what happened to Amber and who might have been responsible. It’s a story about how our own thoughts and opinions can be moulded without us even realising.
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junckert · 4 years
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me and my cat at the beginning of 2020
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