cy blog

hello friends

[corowne]

woah it's been a while huh...customary first draw of the year

[corowne]

A collection of dragon(?) adoptables that Emi and I made on our own bases. Those numbered in white are coloured by me, and the buddy/qilin/flit/dog/beetle bases are also mine.

All of these have been sold! The bases are available here on ko-fi.

[leidensygdom]

Please be aware that the "opt-out" choice is just a way to try to appease people. But Tumblr has not been transparent about when has data been sold and shared with AI companies, and there are sources that confirm that data has already been shared before the toggle was even provided to users.

Also, it seems to include data they should not have been able to give under any circumstance, including that of deactivated blogs, private messages and conversations, stuff from private blogs, and so on.

Do not believe that "AI companies will honor the "opt-out request retroactively". Once they've got their hands on your data (and they have), they won't be "honoring" an opt-out option retroactively. There is no way to confirm or deny what data do they have: The fact they are completely opaque on what do they currently "own" and have, means that they can do whatever they want with it. How can you prove they have your data if they don't give everyone free access to see what they've stolen already?

So, yeah, opt out of data sharing, but be aware that this isn't stopping anyone from taking your data. They already have been taking it, before you were given that option. Go and go to Tumblr's Suppport and leave your Feedback on this (politely, but firmly- not everyone in the company is responsible for this.)

Finally: Opt out is not good under any circumstance. Deactivated people can't opt out. People who have lost their passwords can't opt out. People who can't access internet or computers can't opt out. People who had their content reposted can't opt out. Dead people can't opt out. When DeviantArt released their AI image generator, saying that it wasn't trained on people who didn't consent to it, it was proven it could easily replicate the styles of people who had passed away, as seen here. So, yeah. AI companies cannot be trusted to have any sort of respect for people's data and content, because this entire thing is just a data laundering scheme.

Please do reblog for awareness.

[dreamyfreakout]

tumblr has an AI toggle you should turn on to prevent your work being shared with training models/etc! it's under settings & visibility.

[staff]

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 

We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.

To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 

For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 

Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

[toki-pona]

unfortunately, a lot of the userbase won't opt out. those who don't see this post, those who have posted to tumblr but don't anymore, users on older versions of the app who forget to opt out next time they're on desktop, etc. the point of making it opt-out is to take advantage of people who wouldn't have opted in but don't/can't opt out in time. automatically opting out people who have discouraged search crawling is a gesture that helps Tumblr look more kind, but from the fact that everyone else has to manually opt out, Tumblr is definitely not looking benevolent.

I wonder, will Tumblr/Automattic be selling images from deactivated blogs? I assume deactivated blogs can't opt out.

when will they start selling this data? Is it already too late to keep them from selling every image you've posted before you opted out?

and if they're especially malicious, I wonder if they could get away with saying "this image is from a blog that's opted out, but it was reblogged by a blog that hasn't opted out, so we're selling the image that's on that non-opted-out blog."

making users need to opt out to keep their images from being taken and sold is a shitty move that makes it clear Tumblr/Automattic don't respect our privacy, and @staff are really not giving us much info here to suggest otherwise.

[corowne]

blue hour

[corowne]

4 of 4 guest adoptables for Starsnares! I think this one was the most favoured of the batch.

[ancientannoyance]

tfw that nerd from the sixth informs you that the cavalier you killed like a piece of meat is now slowly but surely becoming an indelible part of you and you just have to live with that

[corowne]

3 of 4 guest adoptables for Starsnares! (I forgot to post this when it went up)

I think this one is my favourite of the bunch, but from experience warm colours aren't as favoured as blues...

[corowne]

Stuff I've been working on in the past few months or so!!!

Exploring some new formats and doing some more graphic designy stuff? (Working on the art of coming up with dummy text also I guess?) I'd like to get more practice with typography and graphic design sooooooooo there'll probably be more of that eventually...

These can be found here: 8bbs.me

[acorviart]

in progress

[corowne]

2 of 4 guest adoptables for Starsnares! (The sale is hosted on their IG post here)

[circlejourney]

Call for respondents: Research survey about how loved ones share virtual spaces across borders

Hey there! Are you an international student, a migrant, or do you keep in online contact with family or partners living in a different country? As part of my PhD research project, I'm conducting a survey to discover current trends in how people in transnational relationships inhabit shared virtual spaces together.

You can find out more and fill the survey here (it should take about 20-30 minutes to complete): https://qsurvey.qut.edu.au/jfe/form/SV_5h8T0jT919v3Qgu.

Reblogs are super appreciated! If you know anyone who might have interesting insights to share, I'd appreciate it lots if you forwarded it to them.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me at [email protected]. Thanks for your time!

[circlejourney]

Last call for responses before I close the survey - will be doing so by the end of the weekend!

[corowne]

1 of 4 guest adoptables for Starsnares! (The sale is hosted on their IG post here)

Below is just a few notes on my thoughts working on this set.

Guesting for closed species!!! It's fun to shop around their trait lists and design without committing to owning the design haha. The mods are lovely and the critters are adorable, it was a great experience and I'm grateful for the opportunity 💕

The shading is experimental, I wanted to see if I could make it work (shaded final artwork while being able to turn off the shading entirely for flat colours) and I think it did pretty well across the entire set of 4, although...it certainly took longer than I'm probably going to earn from these...might have to workshop that a bit.

After going to Design Festa this year I'd been itching to play around with graphic design more so here's an attempt. I had fun with this - all four are composed differently on their graphics with a similar visual theme, split into 2 pairs of 2 adoptable design themes. Stars goes with sky/rainbows (I guess this is a day/night pair), sun goes with moon.

Also yeah I couldn't make this one a square. Or the next one, so I have to deal with awkward thumbnails. Instagram sux

A friend once said that if you don't have enough visual "noise" for a generic floating character kind of drawing and want to add more complexity without adding anything extra, turn on the sketch layer. I'm not sure if this is what they meant (probably not, they use it differently) but it was a lifesaver for filling in the empty spaces in the background.

I think it's really weird thinking that my primary platform for posting art is not dA now. RIP dA

[corowne]

let's...? 🥺👉👈

[corowne]

funny guy

[corowne]

Pleased to announce that since drawing this piece, I got my Starbird! (Counted 14 runs but I likely missed a few)