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18 Jan. 10th, 2026 09:09 am
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Pluralistic: Predistribution vs redistribution (Big Tech edition) (10 Jan 2026)

Jan. 10th, 2026 03:02 pm
[syndicated profile] doctorow_feed

Posted by Cory Doctorow

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/10/markets-are-regulations/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=12247


Today's links


A Canadian flag. The Maple Leaf has been replaced with a rotten apple. Crawling out of the apple is a woim. Over the apple is Apple's 'Think Different' wordmark. The woim is crawling through one of the 'e's.

Predistribution vs redistribution (Big Tech edition) (permalink)

All over the world, for all of this decade, governments have been trying to figure out how to rein in America's tech companies. During the Biden years, this seemed like a winner – after all, America was trying to tame its tech companies, too, with brave trustbusters like Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, Rohit Chopra and Tim Wu doing more work in four years than their predecessors had done in forty.

But under Trump, the US government has thrown its full weight into defending its tech companies' right to spy on and rip off everyone in the world (including Americans, of course). It's not hard to understand how Big Tech earned Trump's loyalty: from the tech CEOs who personally paid a million dollars each to sit behind Trump on the inauguration dais; to Apple CEO Tim Cook hand-assembling a gold participation trophy for Trump on camera; to Zuckerberg firing all his fact-checkers; to the seven-figure contributions that tech companies made to Trump's Epstein Memorial Ballroom at the White House. Trump is defending America's tech companies because they've bribed him, personally, to do so.

Given that these companies are so much larger than most world governments, this poses a serious barrier to the kind of enforcement that world governments have tried. What's the point of fining Apple billions of Euros if they refuse to pay? What's the point of ordering Apple to open up its App Store if it just refuses?

But here's the thing: most of these enforcement actions have been redistributive. In effect, lawmakers and regulators are saying to America's tech giants, We know you've stolen a bunch of money and data from our people, and now we want you to give some of it back. There's nothing inherently wrong with redistribution, but redistribution will never be as powerful or effective as predistribution – that is, preventing tech companies from stealing data and money in the first place.

Take Big Tech's relationship to the world's news media. All over the world, media companies have been skeletonized by collapsing ad revenues and even where they can get paid subscribers, tech giants rake off huge junk fees from every subscriber payment. Reaching new or existing subscribers is also increasingly expensive, as tech platforms algorithmically suppress the reach of media companies' posts, even for subscribers who've asked to see their feeds, and which lets the platforms charge more junk fees to "boost" content.

Countries all over the world – Australia, Germany, Spain, France, Canada – have arrived at the same solution to this problem: imposing "link taxes" that require tech companies to pay for the privilege of linking to the news or allowing their users to discuss the news. This is pure redistribution: tech stole money from the media companies, so governments are making them give some of that money back.

It hasn't worked. First of all, the thing tech steals from the news isn't the news, it's money. Helping people find and discuss the news isn't theft. News you're not allowed to find or discuss isn't news at all – that's a secret.

Meanwhile, tech companies have an easy way to escape the link tax: they can just ban links to the news on their platform. That's what Meta did in Canada, which means that Canadians on Instagram and Facebook no longer see the actual news, just far-right "influencer" content. Even when tech companies do pay the link tax, the results are far from ideal: in Canada, Google has become a partner of news outlets, which compromises their ability to report on Google's activities. Shortly after Google promised millions to the Toronto Star, the paper dropped its award-winning, hard-hitting "Defanging Big Tech" investigative series. Given that Google came within centimeters of stealing most of downtown Toronto just a few years ago, we can hardly afford to have the city's largest newspaper climb into bed with the company:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/31/leaked-document-reveals-that-sidewalk-labs-toronto-plans-for-private-taxation-private-roads-charter-schools-corporate-cops-and-judges-and-punishment-for-people-who-choose-privacy/

Worse still: any effort to make Big Tech poorer – by curbing its predatory acquisition of our data and money – reduces its ability to pay the link tax, which means that, under a link tax, the media's future depends on Big Tech being able to go on ripping us off.

All of which is not to say that Big Tech should be allowed to go on ripping off the media. Rather, it's to argue that we should stop tech from ripping off Canadians in the first place, as a superior alternative to asking Big Tech to remit a small share of the booty to a few lucky victims.

Together, Meta and Google take 51 cents out of every advertising dollar. This is a huge share. Before the rise of surveillance advertising, the ad industry's share of advertising dollars amounted to about 15%. The Meta/Google ad-tech duopoly has cornered the ad market, and they illegally colluded to rig it, which allows them to steal billions from media outlets, all around the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

What would a predistribution approach to ad-tech look like? Canada could ban the collection and sale of consumer data outright, and punish any domestic firm that collects consumer data, which would choke off much of the supply of data that feeds the ad-tech market.

Canada could also repeal its wildly unpopular "anticircumvention" law, The Copyright Modernisation Act of 2012 (Bill C-11), which was passed despite the public's overwhelming negative response to a consultation on the bill:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

Under this law, it's illegal for Canadian companies to reverse engineer and modify America's tech exports. This means that Canadian companies can't go into business selling an alternative Facebook client that blocks all the surveillance advertising and restores access to the news, and offers non-surveillant, content-based ways for other Canadian businesses to advertise:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Repealing Bill C-11 would also allow Canadian companies to offer alternative app stores for phones and consoles. Google and Apple have a duopoly on mobile apps, and the two companies have rigged the market to take 30% of every in-app payment. The actual cost of processing a payment is less than 1%. This means that 30 cents out of every in-app subscriber dollar sent to a Canadian news outlet is shipped south to Cupertino or Mountain View. Legalizing made-in-Canada app stores, installed without permission from Apple or Google, would stop those dollars from being extracted in the first place. And not just media companies, of course – the app tax is paid by performers, software authors, and manufacturers. Extend the program to include games consoles and Canada's game companies would be rescued from Microsoft and Nintendo's own app tax, which also runs to 30%.

But a C-11 repeal wouldn't merely safeguard Canadian dollars – it would also safeguard Canadian data. Our mobile phones collect and transmit mountains of data about us and our activities. Yes, even Apple's products – despite the company's high-flying rhetoric about its respect for your privacy, the company spies on everything you do with your phone and sells access to that data to advertisers. Apple doesn't offer any way to opt out of this, and lied about it when they were caught doing it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

These companies will not voluntarily stop stealing our data. That's the lesson of nine years under the EU's GDPR, a landmark, strong privacy law that US tech companies simply refuse to obey. And because they claim to be headquartered in Ireland (because Ireland lets them cheat on their taxes) and because they have captured the Irish state, they are able to simply flout the law:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/01/erin-go-blagged/#big-tech-omerta

Telling Big Tech not to gather our data is redistribution. So is dictating how they can use it after they collect it. The predistribution version of this is modifying our devices so that they don't gather or leak our data in the first place.

Big Tech is able to suck up so much of our data because anticircumvention law – like Canada's Bill C-11, or Article 6 of the EU Copyright Directive – makes it illegal to modify your phone so that it blocks digital spying, preventing the collection and transmission of your data.

Repeal anticircumvention law and businesses could offer Canadians (or Europeans) (or anyone in the world with a credit card and an internet connection) a product that blocks surveillance on their devices. More than half of all web users have installed an ad-blocker for their browser (which offers significant surveillance protection), but no one can install anything like this on their phones (or smart TVs, or smart doorbells, or other gadgets) because anticircumvention law criminalizes this act.

Big Tech are notorious tax cheats, colluding with captured governments like the Irish state to avoid taxes worldwide. Canada tried to pass a "digital service tax" that would make the US pay a small share of the tax it evades in Canada. Trump went bananas and threatened to hit the country with (more) tariffs, and Canada folded.

Tax is redistributive and getting money back from American companies after they steal it from Canadians is much harder than simply arranging the system so it's much harder for American companies to steal from Canadians in the first place. Blocking spying, clawing back the app tax, unrigging the ad market – these are all predistributive rather than redistributive.

So is selling alternative clients for legacy social media products like Facebook and Twitter – clients that unrig their algorithms and let Canadians see the news they've subscribed to, so they can't be used as hostages to extract "boosting" fees from media outlets who want to reach their own subscribers.

Canada's redistribution efforts have been a consistent failure. Canada keeps trying to get streaming companies like Netflix to include more Canadian content in their offerings and search results. Legalize jailbreaking and a Canadian company could start selling an alternative client that lets you search all your streaming services at once, mixing in results from Canadian media companies and archives like the National Film Board – all while blocking surveillance by the tech giants. This client could also incorporate a PVR, so you could record shows to watch later, without worrying about the tech giants making your favorite program vanish. Remember, if it's legal to record a show from broadcast or cable with a VCR or a Tivo, it's legal to record it from a streaming service with an app.

These predistribution tactics don't rely on US tech companies obeying Canada's orders. Instead, they take away American companies' ability to use Canada's courts and law enforcement apparatus to shut down Canadian competitors who disenshittify America's spying, stealing tech exports. Canada may not be able to push Google or Apple or Facebook around, but Canada can always decide whether Google or Apple or Facebook can use its courts to push Canadian competitors around.

Back in December, when Trump started threatening (again) to invade Canada and take over the country, Prime Minister Mark Carney broke off trade talks. Those talks are slated to begin again in a matter of days:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2025/12/19/canada-u-s-to-start-talks-to-review-free-trade-deal-in-mid-january/87843153007/

Getting Trump to deal fairly with Canada is just as unlikely as getting Trump's tech companies to give Canadians a fair shake. Canada isn't going to win the trade war with an agreement. Canada will win the trade war by winning: with Made-in-Canada tech products that turn America's stolen trillions into Canadian billions, to be divided up among Canadian tech businesses (who will reap profits) and the Canadian public (who will reap savings).

(Image: Dietrich Krieger, CC BY-SA 4.0; Tiia Monto, CC BY 4.0, modified)

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago HOWTO convert an Oral B flosser into a vibrating lockpick https://web.archive.org/web/20060113090614/http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/lockpick/lockpick.aspx

#20yrsago Levi’s to ship iPod jeans https://web.archive.org/web/20060113045708/https://www.popgadget.net/2006/01/levis_ipod_jean.php

#20yrsago Chumbawamba: Why we don’t use DRM on our CDs https://web.archive.org/web/20060112044019/http://www.chumba.com/Chumbawambacopyprotect1.html

#20yrsago UK Parliamentarians demand WiFi https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/british-parliament-members-demand-wi-fi-access/

#15yrsago Sue Townsend talks Adrian Mole with the Guardian book-club https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2011/jan/10/sue-townsend-adrian-mole-book-club

#15yrsago Major record labels forced to pay CAD$45M to ripped-off musicians https://web.archive.org/web/20110112055510/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5563/125/

#10yrsago Why Americans can’t stop working: the poor can’t afford to, and the rich are enjoying themselves https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/inequality-work-hours/422775/

#10yrsago Juniper blinks: firewall will nuke the NSA’s favorite random number generator https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spying-juniper-idUSKBN0UN07520160109/

#5yrsago Impeachment and realignment https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/10/realignments/#realignments

#5yrsago Busting myths about the Night of the Short Fingers https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/10/realignments/#mythbusting

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1008 words today, 4020 total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/10/markets-are-regulations/

https://pluralistic.net/?p=12247

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To the devil on your shoulder.

Jan. 10th, 2026 03:48 pm
goodbyebird: Loki: president!Loki grinning, arms spread wide, "what did you expect?" (Avengers trickster)
[personal profile] goodbyebird
+ I'm going back to work tonight, just to sleep on board so I can get cracking nice and early before everybody else arrives. It'll probably be freezing but hopping in bed wearing wool should sort that out. Right now I am of course procrastinating to the max. I have not packed a single item yet. At least my packages have been collected, the laundry and washing up done, and I've bought the necessities. The plan was to finish early so I could have a nice bath? *sighs at self* Man, you'll love that bath. Make that bath happen!

eta ugh my dad gave me anxiety about whether the key would be there, so now I won't be going on the boat until tomorrow and I'm grumbly about it. I wanted stuff to be ready dammit.

+ One thing I did finish is my holiday quest list in Dreamlight Valley, most important of all lolol. Gotta get those holiday decoration items, so I can boot it back up next December and once again not actually get around to decorating all that much. But it does make Kid Me happy still, wandering around with Belle and Wall-E, the most low stakes gameplay there is, collecting pretty holiday items. (they did actually sneak in an extra holiday thing that started after New Years and I'm cranky about it.)

+ I should also do my big yearly tarot spread, but I may not have the brains. Maybe I'll just lay them out and take pictures for later.

+ Letterboxd's In Memoriam tribute this year really hit me in the feels. We lost some lovely creatives.

+ Discord is hosting a survey to see what you think of them adding AI bullshit here. Feel free to stop by and tell them nope.

+ Snowflake Challenge #5
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.

1. I'd love to see more people share things that bring them joy in their journals, no matter how small. We gotta grab what we can.
2. If you can't quite think of something shiny to share atm: memes are fun!
3. And if anyone has shared something that has brought you joy, please tell them so <3
(sneaky 4. but please do tell Discord to go fuck themselves with their AI bs.)
  • Current Music: Flight Attendant - Man of Chaos
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story out!

Jan. 10th, 2026 09:24 am
genarti: sunbeams lighting yellow flowers, surrounded by rocks and darkness ([misc] break in the clouds)
[personal profile] genarti
I know I still owe some comments on my year-end book post (I'm really enjoying the discussions there! it's just been busy) but I wanted to let you all know that I have a story out! Actually, this one is a first for me: it's a graphic story! When I sent them my prose story about a post-post-apocalyptic soil remediation robot and the various lives of the polluted valley around it, they asked if I would be interested in adapting it to a script for an artist to create a graphic story from, and of course I was. It was a very cool experience, and I'm so impressed with Xiang Yata's art (done impressively fast, no less).

You can check out The Valley in Thaw here, and the whole issue at www.tractorbeam.earth.
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Random Doctor Who Picture

Jan. 10th, 2026 02:24 pm
purplecat: Books. (General:Books)
[personal profile] purplecat

An image of red demons on a totem poll. A tribe of native Americans with feathered headresses is in the background walking towards an English village.

This is the cover from Lawrence Miles' Christmas on a Rational Planet New Adventure. This was his debut novel. I recall very little about it. I think many people immediately recognised him as someone with an exciting suffeit of ideas, but sadly, I can not claim to have been among them.
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IVD 2025 Volunteer Q&A—Translation Spotlight

Jan. 10th, 2026 01:47 pm
[syndicated profile] ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33971

International Volunteer Day

Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees' responses.

The Translation committee's main responsibility is making content from the OTW and its various projects accessible to fans who don't speak English. This includes content for the organization's main site, FAQs on AO3, Open Doors import announcements, and AO3 news posts, among other things. They also collaborate with other OTW committees, for example to help them communicate with non-English speaking fans and users.

We asked the Translation committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Translation Committee Specific Question

Question: Is there a software required if one wanted to volunteer? Also, are there any specific devices required?
Committee answer:
While we have no specific software requirements for volunteering, we definitely recommend using a device with a bigger screen in general, like a desktop or a laptop, or at least a tablet, as that makes it easier to keep everything you need for your work on your screen. One of our requirements for any software we use is that it can run in a common internet browser on a computer, without any local installs, though they may require an app on mobile devices.

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

  • It varies a lot week to week! Some weeks are very quiet and there's not a lot to work on, but when I do get an assignment, I tend to spend about a couple of hours on it, and that will usually be it for the week unless we're working on time sensitive tasks or projects, when things can get more hectic! Translation in particular sets generous deadlines to complete our assignments (5 or 7 days depending on what we're working on), which gives us plenty of time to work on it even after RL work hours and factoring in other real life things. I also sometimes help the Tag Wrangling team with their Spanish tags, but that accounts for a couple of minutes of quick work overall, I'd say. So... tl;dr, about 2-3 hours, give or take, depending on what we have to do for the week! (Saku)
  • It depends on the task, but an average of 2-3 hours per week suffices. (Nameless_ghoul_7)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

  • I usually find time for this during the weekend, considering my day job, so it's more of a weekend activity for me. And I prefer to do my translation in one go, and then go through it again afterwards in my free time post weekday work.
    It's definitely taught me to be good at time management, because you can't predict how your week is going to go at any point. (Ana)
  • I use a time tracker to help me track the time I spend on OTW volunteer tasks, though that usually ends up working more in retrospective, where towards the end of each week I look at the hours I did to evaluate whether my current workload is adequate or whether I should delegate some of my work to other people (or if that's not an option, what I can deprioritise and put off until a bit later). I usually try to pick up some volunteer manager or chair trainee work every other day or so (unless I'm working on something that requires daily attention), just to avoid driving myself insane, because at the end of the day there's always more work I could be picking up still. (Rhine)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

  • My favourite part of volunteering at the OTW has been meeting several new people from around the world and seeing how our different POVs and experiences help with different understandings of life in different spaces and how independently of our differences, cultures and upbringing we're united by pure passion for what we do in and for fandom. Passion and compassion is often hidden or missing in "work spaces" and the OTW has been a positive space filled with positive learning experiences for me since the moment I started volunteering. It's an ever evolving space that takes every instance to be better. (CottonDuck)
  • I was going to say "the people!" and that is mostly true (I've met some wonderful folks as part of Translation, and it's been a great time overall!), but if I sit down to really think about it, I think my favorite part is that it feels very gratifying to be giving back to a community that has done so much for fandom and fan spaces. I don't read a lot of fanfiction myself anymore, much as I do occasionally write it, but fandom is still very important to me and I've made a lot of good friends thanks to it, so it feels good to be able to contribute my time and skills and do something for a space that has done so much for me in turn. It's good work and good people all around, and it feels good to be part of it through my work for the OTW and AO3. (Saku)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

  • How chill the Translation volunteer managers are! If we need something, be it a hiatus, more time on a task, or clarification on some part of the text, we’re pretty much always granted them! And having a full week to do the task is very nice too, I originally thought it was going to be much more hectic. (kati)
  • The sheer scope of work that is involved! There are so many volunteers, like, seriously, *so many*, and each of us have our own little roles to perform, thus helping everything run like clockwork. Having said all that, it's all strictly on a volunteer basis, which makes it probably the only “work place” I've seen where we all actually enjoy doing what we do. (Ana)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

  • Mostly the same as any normal day. Only that I set apart one or two hours most days to translate what's been assigned to me. (ttom)
  • It varies a lot! As Translation volunteer managers, we handle several different tasks, depending on the time of year, and what projects are currently going on. For example, if I'm on duty for managing our email inbox and handing out tasks for the week—we alternate regularly—I'll set aside around 2-3 hours a day after work for that. When we are recruiting for new translators, I'll spend a chunk of time in a week holding interviews. There are also routine tasks that each of us rotates through, like preparing meetings or coordinating the upload of translated content to the OTW and AO3 websites. Independent of the task, I usually work through shorter items on my to-do list on weekday nights, and leave bigger tasks for the weekend. (Elin)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

  • Cats... I love cats and I have one. (Nameless_ghoul_7)
  • Cats, giraffes, turtles, butterflies, and I can go on. As for cats, I love the Egyptian Maus that I currently have. (AnneHelena)
  • My favourite animal is the betta! I loved aquaculture a lot!! My favourite breed of dog is the Indian Pariah Dog. (Aditi Mandavgane)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

  • I love reading fanfics and it's difficult to choose a favourite one. But among the recent fics I am reading, Bifurcation Sandbox by Gardenersnake8822 is a favourite. (Gloriosa)
  • I love reading fanfic! It's definitely become a hobby, and has been the brunt of my reading as of late (because books are expensive < / 3). It's really difficult to pick a favorite work, since I've read so many amazing fics, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick "The Lowlander" by user foxymoxy! It's a BTS-Dragon Age crossover fic that takes the captor/prisoner trope and really dissects and does something interesting with it. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I re-read it all the time. (Somber)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

  • Yes! I have a writing account on some platforms like AO3 (ofc, duh), Twitter, Wattpad, and Medium. There are so many things I love about writing. But, I’m going to list 3 of them here:
    1. I can finally read my ship in tropes that I really wanted to read.
    2. The research process. I gained knowledge while doing my hobby. I learn how to write better, to portray the emotion better, to explore and experiment with my characters’ personality, discover interesting information, and so on.
    3. It helps me clear my mind. (Keane)
  • I used to write original stories that never went anywhere and only started writing and publishing fanfiction in order to learn about AO3's user interface so that I could translate the tutorials more accurately. I like how freeing it feels not to have to worry too much about writing well enough for the general audience – it's just me and the five people (at most) who will ever see my silly little stories! (Slovenian Translation volunteer)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

  • I’m currently obsessed with F1: The Movie and Ocean's Eleven Trilogy. (Cassie)
  • I've been in the Star Wars fandom for more than 20 years at this point, mostly on the Rogue One / Andor side nowadays. (Auré)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

  • My answer is yes, absolutely! Especially on AO3 in particular, because Mandarin Chinese authors have been facing immense opposition in the form of censorship and takedowns of both digital and physical publications of our works. The 227 incident that resulted in AO3 being banned in Mainland China was a major turning point in the involvement of AO3 within Chinese fandom communities, so every time I see a new Mandarin Chinese work on AO3 I'm always grateful that one more author has found a safe avenue to share their creations with the rest of fandom. (Chinese Translation volunteer)
  • Absolutely! My first language is Portuguese and I always find it surprising when I see works on some fandoms that are definitely not popular in my country. It’s like an invisible thread suddenly connects me to someone I don’t know but share two things in common: a language and a love for a fandom that makes us want to spend time and effort creating something to share with that community. Funny enough, I usually like to read fanfics in the language my brain associates them with. For example, I don’t speak Korean, and I usually watch K-dramas with English subtitles to continue learning English, so that’s the language my brain associates that series with. When I see a work in Portuguese for that fandom, it’s like my horizons have suddenly been broadened. And if I get a chance to make an online friend because of it? Even better! (Amanda)
  • I translate English to Marathi, and I don't see a lot of Marathi fanfic on the site, but when I stumble upon one, my heart soars and I feel on top of the world! (Aditi Mandavgane)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers from Translation volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33971

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Kdrama: High School Return of a Gangster

NSFW Jan. 10th, 2026 04:37 pm
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Weekly Chat

Jan. 10th, 2026 01:52 pm
dancing_serpent: (Actors - Lu Yuxiao - Ming Xian)
[personal profile] dancing_serpent posting in [community profile] c_ent
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?

Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or
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Purimgifts assignments had been SENT!

Jan. 10th, 2026 02:45 pm
hagar_972: Heart-shape formed with hands (Heart-hands)
[personal profile] hagar_972 posting in [community profile] purimgifts
Please let us know if there's any issue! Happy creating!
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A new socio-political promo

Jan. 10th, 2026 12:17 pm
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72564&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-new-socio-political-promo

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72564

Jesse Ventura has had a successful career as a pro wrestler, actor, and politician — all largely built on the foundations of his mastery of pro wrestling rhetoric.  And recent events have brought him back into the public eye. His Jan. 8 interview on the Minneapolis Fox News channel got 2.7 million likes and more than 47 thousand comments on TikTok, lots of play on other news-ish outlets, 295k views and more than 7400 comments on YouTube,  and 3.7 million views and more than 1400 comments on X.

See "The art of the promo" (10/31/2020) for some background on this rhetorical style, including its role in Donald Trump's career. And if you haven't listened to Ventura's interview, you should do so as background for this post.

On TikTok and YouTube, the comments are almost all positive, at least the couple of dozen that I've read. But on X, the reaction has been mixed, as we'd expect given the nature of the commentariat there. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to scrape the whole set of comments so as to pull a random sample to classify, but X's sidebar invited me to ask Grok, so I did — with plausible results.

Me: What percentage of the comments are positive?

Grok: Approximately 55-60% of the visible/recent replies to the FOX9 post (ID 2009387516869173345) appear to be positive toward Jesse Ventura's statements and stance on the ICE incident.

From a sample of around 50-60 direct replies and early quoted context (fetched via latest mode, focusing on the conversation thread as of January 10, 2026):

  • Positive comments (praising Ventura, agreeing with his criticism of ICE/Trump, calling him a "badass"/hero, supporting the school staff, or expressing pride): ~28-35 examples
    Examples include:
    • "That is how a real American stands up and speaks"
    • "Jesse Ventura is the bad ass we need right now"
    • "Jesse tore into pedo Trump… He certainly cares for this country"
    • "Bravo!"
    • "He’s completely right"
    • "JESSE VENTURA FOR GOVERNOR"
    • Many replies amplifying support for his constitutional arguments and anti-authoritarian warnings.
  • Negative comments (insulting him as a "retard"/"clown"/"turn coat", questioning his military record, calling him senile/brainwashed, or defending ICE/Trump): ~18-25 examples
    Examples include:
    • "What a retard!"
    • "Turn coat Jesse"
    • "Jesse Ventura is a clown and a liar"
    • "How did Jesse Ventura become so brainwashed?"
    • "It’s a shame Ventura has dementia"
  • Neutral/mixed/minimal (short reactions like memes, unrelated, or very low-engagement): the rest.

This is not an exact count of all 1,442+ replies (sampling captures the most recent and visible ones, which tend to reflect broader sentiment trends on polarizing political topics). High-engagement positive replies (e.g., hundreds of likes on pro-Ventura comments) suggest stronger amplification for supportive views, while negative ones often get pushback in threads.Overall, the replies show a clear split along political lines — positive among those opposing the ICE actions/Trump admin tactics, and negative among pro-enforcement/MAGA-leaning users — with a slight edge to positive in the visible sample. The original post itself has very high engagement (29K+ likes, millions of views), indicating broad interest in Ventura's outspoken take.

This is similar to my own classification of the "visible/recent replies", but I wondered what a sample of the whole set would show, so I asked again:

Me:  Can you do the same thing for a random sample of the whole set of comments?

Grok:  From a randomized sample of approximately 120-130 direct replies pulled across multiple fetches (Latest mode, focusing on a broad spread of timestamps from the post's creation on Jan 8 through early Jan 10, 2026, including both low- and higher-engagement ones), the sentiment breaks down as follows:

  • Positive toward Jesse Ventura / supportive of his stance (praising his words, calling him a hero/badass/true American, agreeing with criticism of ICE/Trump/warrantless actions, defending his military record, or amplifying pro-constitutional arguments): ~58-62%
    • This includes short emojis/supports (👍, Bravo!), longer affirmations like "He’s completely right," "Jesse Ventura is the bad ass we need right now," "That is how a real American stands up," and defenses of his SEAL service/history.
    • Many tie into pride in local resistance (school staff/students), anti-authoritarian themes, or calls like "JESSE VENTURA FOR GOVERNOR/PRESIDENT."
    • Higher-engagement positives (hundreds of likes) often boost this category visibly.
  • Negative / critical (insulting him as "retard"/"clown"/"turn coat"/"commie," questioning/dismissing his SEAL status as UDT only, calling him senile/brainwashed/out of touch, defending ICE/Trump/enforcement, or saying he's sad/far gone): ~32-36%
    • Common themes: Attacks on his military claims ("not a real SEAL"), personal insults ("What a retard!"), or policy pushback ("ICE is here to arrest illegals—what about those laws?").
    • Some express disappointment ("Makes me sad to see what he’s come to").
  • Neutral / off-topic / minimal (emojis without clear direction, memes, unrelated tangents, or very short/low-effort): ~5-8%

This sample shows a slight majority positive (around 60%), consistent with the visible/high-engagement trend in the thread—where supportive replies (especially those highlighting his veteran status or constitutional points) receive more amplification and likes. The split remains heavily polarized along ideological lines:

  • Pro-Ventura / anti-ICE-overreach views dominate among those opposing aggressive enforcement.
  • Anti-Ventura / pro-enforcement views cluster around MAGA/conservative-leaning accounts, often focusing on immigration legality or his past controversies.

Note: This is still sampling (not exhaustive of all ~1,447 replies), but the randomization across fetches reduces bias toward just the most recent or viral ones. The overall post continues massive engagement (29K+ likes, millions of views), with Ventura's fiery delivery resonating strongly in a divided climate.

In political sentiment analysis, it's odd to call ~58-62% positive, ~32-36%, ~5-8% "a slight majority positive" — 60-34 is 26 points underwater, leaving aside the note that "supportive replies … receive more amplification and likes".

Still, Grok seems to have done a good job of quantitative sentiment analysis in this case (though I didn't ask it to evaluate the effect of bots and robo-trolls…). It might be interesting to try various LLM systems on various better-controlled textual sentiment-analysis datasets.

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72564&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-new-socio-political-promo

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72564

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(no subject)

Jan. 10th, 2026 12:36 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] falena and [personal profile] houseboatonstyx!
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Just One Thing (10 January 2026)

Jan. 10th, 2026 12:14 pm
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila posting in [community profile] awesomeers
It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!
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More names from Freeman Wills Crofts novels

Jan. 10th, 2026 02:01 pm
cimorene: closeup of a large book held in a woman's hands as she flips through it (reading)
[personal profile] cimorene
Maurice Mallace
Mr. Nutting
John Squance
Severus Grimsmead
Mr. Fogwill
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Snowflake challenge, day 5

Jan. 10th, 2026 12:15 pm
flo_nelja: (Default)
[personal profile] flo_nelja
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

* First, I'm gonna do like some other people here and say: I love feedback on my fic! If you have some fic of mine marked for later, now is the moment!
Here is my AO3 page, and, for people who only read English, here is the one with my fics in English.

* I've entered recently the Bungou Stray Dogs fandom, after everyone, and even if there are tons of fics to be found at AO3, I'm not sure where to find fanart. There's lot on deviantart, but it's 1) cruelly unsources, and 2) all PG-rated max.
If you have some recs of fanart, by the original artists, I would be happy. I mostly ship Dazai/Akutagawa/Atsushi and any subpart of it, but if the fanart is good I might be interested in anyone. If it's a bit smutty, even better.

* Recently for one of my reading catagories, I had "a pop-up book, or other book with a non-standard way of cutting pages". I can go in any good library and read one, but it would be far better if I was able to read soemthing that's actually good, a maasterpiece of pop-up.
So if you love the genre, or even met a very good one my accident, and have some recs... (kids or not, all's fine)
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Eagles' postseason drill

Jan. 10th, 2026 10:57 am
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72561&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eagles-postseason-drill

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72561

This one isn't part of the standard sets of football drills — but it seems to be having a good effect on locker room atmosphere.

It's interesting that two of the immediate answers, "giraffe" for G-F and "zone" for Z-N, are based on pronunciation rather than spelling — phonics FTW!

 

,

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72561&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eagles-postseason-drill

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72561

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I had the weirdest dream the other day

Jan. 10th, 2026 05:12 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
You'll laugh, it was that weird.

I dreamed that I was going to sleep. I had found a bed - not my actual bed, just a bed! - and snuggled down to sleep. And then I woke up a little (really woke up, not dream woke up) in my own bed, snuggled up nice and cozy, and drifted between the two beds, real and dream, for a little bit before falling back asleep for real.

****************


( Read more... )
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Once you've gone, remains the question, baby

Jan. 10th, 2026 05:40 am
sovay: (Viktor & Mordecai)
[personal profile] sovay
While we seem to have skipped actual plague, all of my households have acquired the going lurgi and my head feels like a balloon which has been filled with concrete and may at any second fall off. I have not been ill with a pharmacologically suppressed immune system before. I hadn't been sure it would be capable of running even a low-grade fever.

I have him so totally identified with the role of Neroon on Babylon 5 (1994–98), I keep forgetting that John Vickery in common with many actors who could handle the hours of makeup made several appearances on Star Trek, although the time I actually seem to have seen him in that universe involved no enhancements beyond near-catatonic terror as the sole survivor of a creepily derelict death-ship in TNG's "Night Terrors" (1991). Perhaps it was just lost to the sands of fanzines, but I was genuinely surprised that no one on AO3 ever filled in some kind of /comfort for a character who spends nearly his total screen time telepathically looping through cryptically traumatized echoes and crying. Just when you think you have a handle on other people's id.

It is not reasonable that for two years the earth has been bereft of a rust-black little cat with cut-lime eyes, my miracle, my salty boy, my sassafras, while it suffers the weight of human people who are not worth one of his twenty-six claws, snagged in my bathrobe as he clambered to my shoulder for his terrycloth time after a shower. I miss turning back the covers in this weather to find his sincere blink up from the bedclothes, the absolute trust in the soft curl of his back that no one would shift him from his burrowed comfort. I miss the notes in his purr, from the musical edge of wanting to the subterranean roar of contentment, the whole architecture of his body vibrating like throat singing with the little whiffle that went in and out of his voice, his signature trill. I miss the unretractable click of his claws that announced his progress and the calluses of his desert-rose pads with which he gripped fiercely for human touch. From childhood I was taught that cats turn into flowers and Autolycus lies with his grave goods at the roots of the forsythia I have twice watched bloom since his death; the candle lit for him after sunset burns and his sister did not spring immediately off the bed when I stumbled into it, nauseated and head-aching. I am not without cat in my life. But I am without this cat and he was of inestimable worth to the world.
  • Current Music: Vivian Girls, "Where Do You Run To"
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multifandom icons.

Jan. 10th, 2026 12:33 pm
wickedgame: I am the night (Louis | Interview With The Vampire)
[personal profile] wickedgame posting in [community profile] fandom_icons
Fandoms: 9-1-1, Cobra Kai, Crazy Handsome Rich, Dead Boy Detectives, Heated Rivalry, Legend of the Seeker, Maxton Hall, Ransom Canyon, Stay By My Side

heatedrivalry-1a.png maxtonhall-1x01b.png crazyhandsrich-1x06a.png
rest HERE @ [community profile] mundodefieras 
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PSA

Jan. 11th, 2026 05:25 am
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Fanvid Friday: Britney Spears

Jan. 10th, 2026 01:52 am
rogueslayer452: (Namie Amuro.)
[personal profile] rogueslayer452
( I'm sorry for running away like this / I'm sorry, I've already made my wish.... )

My Comments: A little belated, I know. Okay, so this one is a bit different because it's a fanmade video for one of Britney Spears' songs, "Cinderella", edited with various music videos and footage of Britney herself as an unofficial music video. The creator of this fanmade video, which was uploaded back in the day before YouTube existed (I remember downloading it off of KaZaa), did such a great job with matching moments and even doing their best to sync up clips that made it seem like Britney was singing the song. So despite the lower quality it still holds up to this day as being among my favorite fanmade unofficial music videos done.

Also, as an aside, this is something that AI can never do. There is practice and skill to creating a piece of fanmade work like this, and nothing compares to the blood, sweat and tears of dedicated fans spending hours on a video editing software and sharing that hard work and creativity even to a handful of people.
  • Current Mood: content
  • Current Music: Britney Spears - Cinderella
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