ratty chronicles

Turns out it was just more (yet again) legislative fuckery. So Tumblr has now been classified as a 'gambling' site/app by the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center. I can no longer access it either on desktop or mobile without a VPN, no matter if it's wifi or mobile data.

Some of my friends can still access it depending on their internet service provider, but it seems that the big ones like PLDT have now blocked Tumblr. 

We are understandably not at all thrilled about this. 

Besides it just being unspeakably annoying, it just really rubs in our faces the incompetence of our government (though this is a thing that happens all the time). What do you mean Tumblr is banned, when you also still allow this kind of thing to be included as ads when setting up a new phone?



Look at our Cybercrime Center, man. We are so fucking cooked. 

Now there are some valid points: Tumblr has been allowing just about any kind of ad under the sun. I can't even browse it comfortably in public sometimes, because there's a non-zero chance of a porn ad or a pornbot popping up somewhere. This has been a thing about Tumblr for years. Everyone knows that it's a hellsite. There are also scammers and scambots who prey on the non-internet literate, though I think internet safety should be something that everyone of adult age should have learned by this point.

What strikes me is this — if these are the tenuous 'qualifications' to get a site/app shot down as unsafe, then they could just as easily target some apps like Discord. I don't know about you, but as much as I'd love for there to be a Discord alternative now due to its own bullshit, it's the platform almost everyone uses for casual chatting and keeping in contact with their friends. 

Hell, maybe not even just casual chatting. I've heard that the kids and students use them nowadays for schoolwork; then, of course, there's the fact that a lot of companies now hold official servers on Discord for customer support or updates. Beyond that — and this is a problem — Discord has replaced forums. This is not a good thing, a lot of information is now locked behind these servers, channels, and communities, especially now that Discord keeps shooting itself in the foot. 

There are also plenty of scammers and other such predatory users on Discord. Gambling can and probably does happen on it. People have spent stupid amounts of money on stupid bots where you can trade pngs of your waifus/husbandos (I'm looking at you, Mudae, for the unspeakable headaches you have given me in my years as a former server admin).

Look. It's just really all that stupid. Maybe it's 'chronically online', as some would say, but I do think that a lot of things of value would be lost if incompetent governments and incompetent companies take these from us, okay?