Mostly here to follow other people

[belvira]

She balled so hard they banned her from ballin.

[transhuman-priestess]

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

[anoraktrend]

Linux is a very good and powerful alternative.

[transhuman-priestess]

[transarsonist]

reminder: you cannot Personal Choises your way out of an Intentional Structural Problem

[yurigirldick]

Fun fact! School Chromebooks block Linux. It's not an easy alternative. You are missing the point

[liirker-at-thresholds]

I really like how the scientology speedrunning trend is developing, in this clip we see that the participants are

Not deterred by the closed door

Working as a group

Protecting their identities

Inflicting material costs to the institution via property destruction

Getting away at the end

These ideas were not all here from the beginning. They are genuinely gaining experience that can be applied elsewhere

[liirker-at-thresholds]

The church of scientology is on tumblr and they are sending me anon asks telling me that they can't even commit to reporting a post

[drtrinitysantos]

sdxfcgvzdxfcgvhzdxfcgvhbjnkmlcgvhbjnk science

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

#the reason that lab safety regulations are the way they are is because literally all chemists are like this #as in 100% of them #no exceptions (via @prokopetz)

[shleepy-girl]

[do-you-have-a-flag]

i think someone should make an indie game based on all the people speedrunning through the scientology headquarters to map it

you have the obvious gameplay of exploration to map a location, but also there can be character customising and multiplayer to allow for atrategic avoidance and overwhelming of the scientologists trying to block you/kick you out

i also think it would be funny to have a videogame where the game design is based on the actual maps these people are making from their incursions

[do-you-have-a-flag]

you're right

[the-evil-skull]

I can buy the Doctor destroying Gallifrey, you see. They've done it before, and they're kind of justified in doing so. But the Master destroying Gallifrey just makes the Time Lords look exceptionally pathetic

[the-evil-skull]

The Doctor destroyed Gallifrey! = circle of life. The time lords are destroyed by that which created them in the first place, completing the ouroboros loop.

The Master destroyed Gallifrey! = they're just letting ANYONE destroy Gallifrey these days

[space-elevator-liftman]

Seriously. 1970s-1980s Earth not only managed to not be destroyed by The Master, UNIT imprisoned him on their own without the Doctor's help for like months at a time. Gallifrey can't manage that?

[staff]

A note from the Tumblr team

A few weeks ago, a small but higher-than-normal number of accounts were mistakenly suspended. The suspensions were quickly reversed, but our response wasn't good enough, and we want to say more.

We're sorry it took us this long to address this. Trust and safety issues are difficult to discuss publicly, and we can’t share details about specific individuals or how our systems work without exposing Tumblr to bad actors. But caution led us to say too little, too late.

We’ve heard from members of the trans community on Tumblr that they were disproportionately impacted, and that deserves a direct response. According to 3rd party researchers, Tumblr’s userbase has the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, so it makes sense that when something goes wrong, those communities might feel that disproportionate impact.

One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities. We moderate behavior. We know that identity shows up across a Tumblr profile in many ways, from followed topics to the flags people put in their bios, and more. However, these signals play no role in how our moderation systems make decisions. We monitor those systems for evidence of bias and take corrective action when we find it.

We understand that the communications sent to affected users, and our broader silence to the community, didn't meet the standard people expect from us. That feedback is fair, and we apologize. We've updated the messaging sent to people impacted by these incidents. We are also overhauling our process with a goal of responding to mistaken suspension appeals within 24 hours, and have instituted an ongoing internal review of how suspensions and appeals are handled.

Going forward, we're committed to finding a better balance: being more transparent with our community about issues that matter, even when we can't share everything.

Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust. We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time.

To the people whose accounts were affected, and to the members of our trans community who felt targeted: we are truly sorry.

Tumblr Staff

[space-elevator-liftman]

So are you gonna unban the trans women you wrongfully banned and try to avoid having this happen in the future, or this "we are twuly sowwy uwu" stuff all talk?

[staff]

A note from the Tumblr team

A few weeks ago, a small but higher-than-normal number of accounts were mistakenly suspended. The suspensions were quickly reversed, but our response wasn't good enough, and we want to say more.

We're sorry it took us this long to address this. Trust and safety issues are difficult to discuss publicly, and we can’t share details about specific individuals or how our systems work without exposing Tumblr to bad actors. But caution led us to say too little, too late.

We’ve heard from members of the trans community on Tumblr that they were disproportionately impacted, and that deserves a direct response. According to 3rd party researchers, Tumblr’s userbase has the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, so it makes sense that when something goes wrong, those communities might feel that disproportionate impact.

One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities. We moderate behavior. We know that identity shows up across a Tumblr profile in many ways, from followed topics to the flags people put in their bios, and more. However, these signals play no role in how our moderation systems make decisions. We monitor those systems for evidence of bias and take corrective action when we find it.

We understand that the communications sent to affected users, and our broader silence to the community, didn't meet the standard people expect from us. That feedback is fair, and we apologize. We've updated the messaging sent to people impacted by these incidents. We are also overhauling our process with a goal of responding to mistaken suspension appeals within 24 hours, and have instituted an ongoing internal review of how suspensions and appeals are handled.

Going forward, we're committed to finding a better balance: being more transparent with our community about issues that matter, even when we can't share everything.

Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust. We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time.

To the people whose accounts were affected, and to the members of our trans community who felt targeted: we are truly sorry.

Tumblr Staff

[killpeoplewithjoy]

A Response From A Tumblr User

This is a lie. you are lying. You didn't hear from the general trans community, you heard from transfeminine community. The system of moderation is discriminatory towards transfeminine people. This also was not limited to a couple weeks ago, this is happening currently. As of yesterday, April 14, 2026, it has been ongoing.

It will not 'expose Tumblr to bad actors' if you explain your moderation policy, because your moderation is -already- being abused by bad actors. you are implying that your system isn't currently being abused, this is a lie. You imply the trade off of transparency wouldn't be worth the increase in labor. Actually, it would allow us to address it on -our end- and take steps to prevent the harassment that stems from the current abuse.

"According to third party researchers", your moderation policies disproportionately affect the trans and queer community. This is a matter of public record. your claim, that it will seem disproportionate but actually isn't, is unsubstantiated. you are lying.

Source: https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/enforcement/2022-settlements.page

(is your Classifier OpenAI? https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/ not relevant this one its just being petty rn.)

You actually don't "moderate behavior", you respond to reports. You have yet to give any reason to take you at your word on the process itself. Transmisogynistic moderation was lied about for months if not years. Users only got confirmation during Matt's public melt down. You know your *policies* fall short. You've stated as such in 2024, when you wiped your hands of responsibility for a staff member stalking and harassing a user.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/staff/743224389484625920/a-message-from-a-few-of-the-trans-staff-at-tumblr

If you punished behavior, your CEO would not be allowed to have an account on this website.

But this is to deflect the issue raised, which is that transfeminine people are being disproportionately affected -even compared to other trans people- for "BEHAVIORS" that NON transfeminine people aren't. Identity has little, if nothing, to do about it. The moderation system is sexist. it produces misogynistic outcomes, therefore is misogynist. This Is the exact reason people were angry at PhotoMatt.

From: https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-transphobia-matt-mullenweg

Once again, you are missing the point by conflating transfeminine/trans women/"TMA" people, ("those communities" as you call us) with the broader and less discrete LGBTQIA+ community.

Your Auto flagging system, which has been the source of a significant amount of reports and subsequent bans is not addressed at all. This is a lie by omission.

Address the issues raised and not the ones you can think up a clever thing to apologize for. You make more work for yourself when you obscure the issue. It does not matter if you are doing this intentionally.

And the most erogenous part: "Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust." -Lie, its belongs to Automattic and the investors of such.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service

In Conclusion, "We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time." -Lie, you do not address the issues and the time it takes to respond is due to backtracking and taking more time on framing this than investigating the substance of reports. To Quote Judge Maya Gamble "You believe everything you say is true, but your beliefs do not make something true, just because you claim to think something is true does not make it true."

[afriendofblahaj]

Everything above does a really good job of breaking things down point by point but I want to make the simpler point.

"One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities. We moderate behavior."

I (somewhat) believe that they moderate behaviour. I don't doubt they have a specific reason for banning most users that does in fact go against the TOS*. The problem is that time and time again it has been proven that they only moderate this behaviour when it is trans women who are doing it. They are hiding behind excuses to justify the people they do ban, while completely leaving out that the main issue is that this is who they are targeting for minor rules violations when Nazis, porn bots, racists, transphobes and more all are never so much as flagged.

I've said it before but the problem has nothing to do with who they are banning when entire tags dedicated to actual Nazis are completely unmoderated.

That's the lie at the core of all of this.

*I'm adding this note here because the TOS is very wide reaching and broad, as many sites are, and many users are technically in violation constantly. So while technically it is following TOS to ban those being banned, there's deeper issues with the TOS itself. All of that is moot so long as they continue to selectively enforce it though. The conversation about this would look very different if the TOS was actually enforced site wide instead of targeting us.

[houseofmcallister]

actual prev isnt allowed to keep these in the tags

[pastelalleycat]

A note from the Tumblr team (translated)

A few weeks ago, we unfairly suspended a higher-than-normal number of accounts. The suspensions were reversed, but userbase outcry is still high, and we want to say more to avoid further retaliation.

We're not sorry it took so long to address this. Trust and safety issues are difficult to discuss publicly, especially when we're the people responsible for those issues. We can't share details about specific individuals or how our systems work because it'd become quickly apparent that the overwhelming majority of suspended individuals were transgender. Caution led us to stay quiet because— again— we don't want our userbase breathing down our necks.

Speaking of transgender people, we've heard from members of the trans community on Tumblr, namely trans women, that they were disproportionately impacted, and we have chosen to respond in the most indirect, avoidant way possible. We are fully aware that Tumblr's userbase has the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, even without 3rd party research. It makes sense that when we exclude trans women, they feel that disproportionate impact.

One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities, with the sole caveat of if they make us uncomfortable. We know that identity shows up across a Tumblr profile in many ways, from followed topics to the flags people put in their bios, and more. This plays a major role in how our moderation systems make decisions, as they are trained to be biased against trans women by design. We cannot find any reason to take corrective action on this.

We understand that the communications sent to affected users, and our broader silence to the community, says more about our morals than we'll ever be willing to own up to. That feedback is fair, and we're trying to save face by writing this post instead of addressing the trust and safety issues directly with the trans women who were affected and the broader userbase. We are also overhauling our process with a goal of responding to suspension appeals within 24 hours, and are hoping to expedite our process of suspending and harassing trans women in the future.

Going forward, we're committed to finding a better balance: being as transparent as possible with our community about issues that matter to them without directly incriminating us, and simply lying when we don't feel comfortable sharing everything.

Tumblr belongs to Automaticc. We take our 3rd party affiliation seriously, and we intend to stay on good terms with them. We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or rollback updates based on your feedback, though usually, it will take a decent amount of uproar on your part and as much obfuscation as we can manage on our part.

To the people whose accounts were affected— most notably trans women, who justifiably felt targeted— we aren't sorry.

Tumblr Staff

[staff]

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

[shebangasylum]

remember when Tumblr said this, but has to this day, continued to ban trans users and flag trans posts as mature content?

pepperidge farms remembers.

[thefreakmeister]

me: isn’t it funny how captain kirk was supposed to be the sex appeal of star trek but it ended up being spock

my dad: i thought it was bones

me:

my dad: i thought bones was supposed to be the sex appeal

[space-elevator-liftman]

The secret to TOS's success: they're all the sex appeal

[jungwildeandfree]

and while we’re at it, fuck this idea that ONE ACCOUNT has to belong uniquely to ONE PERSON. This is the same thing these silicon valley fucks want; their vision of the future where everyone has a unique biometric ID code implanted in their body is the ultimate extension of Netflix’s “no password sharing” policy. You want to use your friend’s car? Sorry, you can’t, you need to be an authorized user. Your mother wants to let you look something up on her OED account? Too bad! That’s only for her! The concept of perfect market efficiency gives them greedy little money bag eyes.

If I pay money to have a newspaper sent to my house, they don’t charge me extra when I show it to my dad. This password sharing thing isn’t just a Netflix problem; don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in other forms. Stamp this idea out now or we’ll be stuck with it.

[jungwildeandfree]

This is by far the most popular post I have and I have to say: good, I’m right. Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet. not oooh in 50 years. in like 5 more.

[zmpl]

has anyone noticed that after the porn ban of 2018 tumblr was essentially killed from the mainstream and everyone flocked to other social media sites like twitter and meta. then those sites got enshittified to where twitter became Nazi Central and meta sites had an entire meme around getting “zucced” aka mark zuckerberg himself would ban you for saying a no-no word like fuck. and then the mainstream shifted to tiktok where infamous toddlerspeak sentences like “he got unalived by a pew pew” were born because if you once again say a no-no word like kill or gun or any other word that isn’t corporate i mean kid friendly then the algorithm will bury your post into the ground. and somehow we’ve come full circle and tumblr is now the most bearable social media site because although we can’t have female presenting nipples we can at least talk to each other like adults. has anyone noticed that at all or is it just me and the flaming skull

[mushroomofficial]

An Oven is a kind of European above-ground umu typically constructed from metal and ceramic. Originating in the 18th century, ovens are primarily used for preparing several kinds of Western-style hāngī, such as Sunday roasts, casseroles, and pies, which are cooked in various types of specialised poti. Ovens are usually constructed off-site in dedicated facilities before being installed in the whareumu, or kitchen, of a European whare. They are typically not able to be moved once installed, quite unlike umu which may be constructed anywhere and are readily deconstructed and moved as needed. Another limitation of ovens is that due to their small internal volume relative to their overall size, they are generally restricted in the amount of kai they can produce. An oven will produce only enough kai to feed a few people, whereas a hāngī cooked in an umu can feed an entire village.

[estrapaded]

Thank you for sharing this piece of quaint European culture (or is it Europeanne? so bad at spelling haha 😄) It's so interesting how the European word for umu, oven, is seemingly not contained in the European for whareumu (kitchen). It sounds like a product of evolution of the ancient language, coupled with the instability of warring tribes. Fascinating!

[mushroomofficial]

this is true, with some caveats: the earliest ovens in europe actually date back to 29,000 bce, but these kinds of ovens were also found across the indus valley and egypt about 20,000 years later so they’re not strictly european. more sophisticated ovens were found across the middle east and also greece and modern-day italy for many thousands of years after this, and there were other kinds of “ovens” used across europe during the middle ages, but i would argue that none of these were in a form that recognisably correlates with modern in-home ovens in the western world (commercial ovens are a different beast entirely).

the date i used in the original post was the invention of the cast-iron stove, which was circa 1700s, because imo it bears the most similarity to modern ovens in form, material composition, installation, and use, compared to all its predecessors. it is also i think the point where european ovens diverged significantly enough from umu for this post to make sense.

of course i put none of this in the original post because then it wouldn’t be funny, but now i have an opportunity to lore dump about ovens, so thank you :)

[catboybiologist]

Political pet peeve but nothing being done is a "distraction" from anything else. Everything that the current administration is doing is an extension of American imperialism and conservative American values. Iran is not being bombed to "distract from the Epstein files", trans legislation is not being passed to "distract from Palestine", none of this is happening just to "distract" you. And dismissing certain issues as "distractions" is a horrific excuse of them.

It is, however, happening all at once to overwhelm you. And there is a HUGE difference.

[autisticexpression2]

Calling things "distractions" in this context isn't a dismissal. It's an analysis of the cynical motovations behind these things. You might not agree, and you certainly make an interesting point, but it's important that we engage with each other’s perspectives in good faith.

[i-am-cybersmith]

It's an EXTREMELY MYOPIC AND FOOLISH ANALYSIS.

Fundamentally, it centres the analyst and the analyst's thoughts about a situation as the primary motivators for engaging in actions. Sadly, the fact is you are simply not that important. The Great Powers of the world do not do things to "distract" you, because you being distracted or not distracted is of very little concern to them.

[catboybiologist]

You can't have me agreeing with fucking cybersmith on my own post

Well. Not completely. Individuals are important, as members of a mob, but again, that's why this is an overwhelming tactic and not a distraction one.

[albva]

[dragongirlsnout]

It's to be expected as part of the capitalist death spiral, really, but it truly is hilarious just how disconnected from material reality a lot of recent tumblr updates have been. It beholds a sort of "spherical cow in a frictionless vacuum"-based methodology in which "more popular social media sites than us have this feature, ergo, we can attract their users by replicating them 1:1" is a logical thought form and not pure fallacy. Even ignoring the realities of user retention, appeal in uniqueness, and the popularity of the actual features being copied, it requires a sort of Maxwell's Daemon-esque exchange in which users will leave an established service for an imitator that offers no additional benefits.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

The Oregon data center situation is a really good example of how anti-ai sentiment on this website has such a totality over the average users mind that they don't understand articles put in front of them. People on this website will refuse to understand actual situations that are happening because they want to be more mad at AI.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

'The Precedent Is Flint': How Oregon's Data Center Boom Is Supercharging a Water Crisis

Amazon data centers constructed in eastern Oregon's farmland have worsened a water pollution problem that’s been linked to cancer and miscar

The article again for people who missed it but to summarize the issue

>a rapid boom of agriculture in an otherwise arid and less than optimally fertile region has resulted in a ton of water pollution from the fertilizers necessary to keep the agricultural industry there profitable

>the people in charge of cleaning the water struck a deal with the agricultural farms that they would provide polluted water for them to spray over their crops as a way to cut down on fertilizer costs

>this polluted water then re-enters the water table, and this is particularly drastic for winter spraying where there is no crops to absorb the extra nitrates

>the reservoir and water tables at this point are so intensely polluted that there isn't clean water left

>enter Amazon

>amazon uses water to cool off their data centers

>normally this would not be a problem. data centers do not "pollute" the water they intake

>however, since hot water tends to evaporate somewhat, this results in any pollutants already in the water to become more concentrated

>because the water table is already so polluted, Amazon can't source clean water and must use nitrate polluted water for their data centers

>this causes a discharge of more nitrate concentrated water which is putting additional stress on the waste water systems and requiring more spraying

>data centers are not causing the problems but are exacerbating it

>these data centers have been in the area for over a decade, because data centers are used for more than AI

>the presence in agriculture, the data centers, and the waste water solution were all orchestrated by about five to seven members of government all working together to make as much money as possible in a bunch of nakedly corrupt moves

>this includes the waste water treatment body blackmailing the state government to let them continue to do winter sprays or they'll dump their nitrate polluted water into the water system

>all the while this has resulted in a bunch of health complications such as cancers and miscarriages

>the people trying to expose this are being targeted both by government and by under the table actors

>the whole situation is fucked and the state government isn't moving to actualyl fix it

This is a very complicated situation. Here is what the average tumblr users knows about it

>AI data centers cause cancer

do you see? do you see why this pisses me off? do you see why I said that I think anti-AI sentiment is going in the wrong place? Stopping AI will not stop this situation or make it better.

[aro-pancake]

The issue with AI is deeper.

Those agrochemicals will (should) return to nature and be absorbed by plants in nature when they get there. If they're overly concentrated because the water stopped somewhere that evaporated most of the water there, the trees and plants in your local woods™ won't absorb them.

And, either way, the evaporation of that much water in a single datacenter is a matter of concern. It'll divert rivers and change rain patterns. It'll make rain in places that aren't used to it, and stop rains in places that should be raining all year long. Weather patterns are already wonky as is.

You want the real solution to the world right now? It happened in France, circa 1776. That's what y'all need in the US, and, honestly, most of the world, right now.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

You don't understand the issue and should maybe consider reading the article in full detail and actually should do some research into agricultural pollution (you can't just let it out you have to treat it to make it inert if not you'll cause an algae bloom in the Pacific).

One data center is not evaporating enough water to change weather patterns. This is an absurd claim and ignores the reality, which is that rivers are already diverted for the agricultural industry and that industry wastes incredible amounts of water. Most of the Colorado river is diverted not for data centers but for pistachio farms.

Also you seem to misunderstand evaporation and concentration so to explain it really simply. If you take in polluted water and you evaporate say, 1% of it due to how the mechanics of evaporation works, the water you discharge will be more concentrated than when it went in. You do not need massive swings of water in order to do this. As long as less water leaves than came in, you're increasing the density of pollutants.

And yeah I think revolution would be good but we really need to talk about getting water rights outside of the hands of just like fifty or so business owners and work towards more overall implementation of water purification technology instead of the current system which is designed to concentrate nitrate pollution.

[aro-pancake]

To get the water rights out of the hands of 50 guys, y'all gonna need revolution.

And it isn't one datacenter. They're spreading, going to springs and other water basins. I should know because they put a fucking datacenter near the spring of the largest most important river in my state. (Not in the US)

Also, babes, I grew up on a damn farm. Half my family works with cattle, plantations, orchards... You name it. Sure, grandpa was more into natural pest control (a form of building your farm that allows animals to live there and eat the pests), but he still needed some stronger stuff now and again for fungi and diseases in his orchards.

And imagine that water, that same river going through 5, 10 datacenters. Sure, each one could evaporate only 1% of the water (it's more. Way more), and what do we get in the end?

So, yeah. We gonna need wood, metal sheets and some gunpowder barrels.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

No no no no no stop. Have you read the article in any detail? Did you stop and click on the link and read through a genuinely good piece of reporting before commenting? That's the bar.

[aro-pancake]

A) I have read enough articles like that

B) My DNS is flaring up like all hell is about to break loose when I click it

C) my husband is a developer, and goes through enough articles like this one, that we know exactly what's going on.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Okay so you know about how the facility managing the wastewater is allowing it to build up in massive pools deliberately in order to concentrate its nitrate levels to be used as fertilizer for massive industry farms (and not pesticides). You know how this system is in place because the community suffering from nitrate poisoning is in Oregon's rain shadow and yet one of the major potato farms is somehow in the area?

Or about the multiple layers of blatant corruption, the ways in leaders in the community committed fraud and lied to constituents in order to personally profit? That the people trying to expose the situation we're ousted by their local government? Or the organization trying to help residents having one of their trucks torched?

No I don't think you do know. I am not saying AI is blameless here or elsewhere. I am not even talking about other situations or other facets of the issue. The data centers here, which have been here and planned for over a decade and long before the AI boom, are making the situation worse by stressing out an already bad system more. It definitely accelerated the issue.l, although by exactly how much it's never really going to be clear. It wasn't like the industry farms were perfectly content not expanding either.

I was bringing up this situation to talk about how people just adamantly refuse to understand what is actually taking place. If gen AI was never created, these people would still be in this situation. If Amazon never moved in, this situation probably would have happened ten years down the line. There are going to be situations where AI is the direct issue. But flattening the issue here doesn't help and it helps amongst all other things to actually like, dig into situations.

People don't want to do that and frankly it really doesn't sound like you want to either. That's what makes me mad about the whole thing.

[aro-pancake]

fertilizer for massive industry farms (and not pesticides).

That's why I said agrochemicals rather than pesticides or fertilizers specifically.

And, no, because that's not an issue here. Like I said before, I'm not USAmerican. I'm not privy to y'all's internal issues other than the shitstain you currently have on the White House being an international joke and the "What chicken ate his brains and shat in its place? Is the chicken ok?" reactions from the brainless stuff he does/says.

But, with that being said, Agrochemicals have been a polemical subject all over the world for over half a century. Grandpa could have told you stories of that shit in the 70's, for hours.

There's no easy way of dealing with the subject. It's a wasps nest. Sure, we need to find better ones. But that's been on debate for as long as Environmental consciousness and Agrochemicals have been a thing.

Datacenters are another set of wasps nests.

And, yes, when the two are together it'll make everything worse.

But that's also not an excuse to blame it all on agriculture.

Saying that we wouldn't have a Datacenter water pollution issue if the water wasn't already riddled with agrochemicals doesn't solve the issue of datacenters draining energy from peoples homes in nearby cities because, apparently, keeping that running during a low energy period is somehow more important than keeping people alive.

So, yeah. It's complex. It's hard. It's gonna take time I don't have right now to talk about it.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Okay I have officially run out of patience. I am just going to explain myself again

I am not blaming it all on agriculture. You have imagined that. There's a lot of blame to spread around this situation, and this is also the position the article took.

The industrial farms are at fault for what they're doing to the ground water. The government is at fault for arranging all of this for personal profit. Amazon is at fault for building data centers back in 2010 in an area of the country with polluted freshwater.

This situation, which is what this post was talking about, is very complicated. It's a result of a lot of different forces and motivations. I get angry because the last post I saw about this issue, on this website, flattened this issue down to "AI data centers cause cancer".

This is obviously bad. Making this all the fault of AI exonerates everyone else involved. But what I am NOT SAYING is that AI is blameless or data centers never cause problems or can't be the principle issue. It's that people love to make it the principle issue and ignore everything else.

People didn't interact with the actual situation.

So yes, data centers use a lot of power. This is true. But you never wondered if that was relevant or not. It's not. This situation is about nitrate poisoning! It's about there being no clean water and people getting sick.

You do not need to sit here and go "The situation with AI is deeper" to me. Because I am not talking about the grand situation, I am talking about this one specific situation and how it was grossly misinterpreted. You don't need to talk to me about other issues.

This is at least partially my fault for responding to a certain point early on, but you have not understood what this post has actually been about since the beginning. You have imagined I am saying AI as a whole is fine actually. You have imagined I am taking this one example and using it to disprove everything else.

And frankly, it's made this whole conversation worthless. All I ask is that when you have the chance to actually read the article.