Regardless of how you see it, although the ad was a kind of manipulative reframing of surveillance infrastructure by using pets as means of psychological manipulation, the Super Bowl ad seems to have just been an unfortunate (or fortunately) timed ad that caused people to glimpse through the cracks in the control matrix being constructed around them.
I don’t think it will really make a difference though. It’s like wildebeest watching their compatriot snatched underwater by a crocodile, to only momentarily pause before venturing right into the same river.
Yeah, it’s a timing thing. Government surveillance with commercial partnerships is more aggressive now, and the stories are chipping away at our collective ignorance until something like this connects the dots for people. I’m off in my corner of culture and don’t watch social video so I didn’t appreciate the work that streamers/explainers have done to alert normal people to these problems. But those videos were more effective at getting Flock out of my city than any canvassing I did. It’s nice to see conspiracy brains turned to an actual cabal.
The implication is obvious, the feel is inhuman.
The power of a few seconds of video is why TikTok had to be brought under control ( and sadly not just because of worrying about what others might do, but to specifically censor and promote specific messages ).
The issue really isn't about whether your neighbourhood has camera's, the question is who is in control.
Didn't USA's current regime take over TikTok in order to use it for propaganda? Twitter-X was used so successfully that they're expanding their psyops.
Either way just stop using it and nobody gets to psyop you. It’s very straightforward.
China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes. Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems.
You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner? Like, I hate all those guys so much that we're going to make everything they want at whatever price they want to pay ...? In the past it might have been possible to argue they were anti-American in their politics; like opposing democracy, or rounding up nationals, ... but USA does as badly (worse?) on those things.
What it looks like is China was 'winning' the trade balance and USA's billionaires decided to take a break from raping teenagers to throw all the citizens on the fire to try and leverage their position to bring in fascism as a means to enriching themselves even further. Go USA, eh.
Yea but you can stop what would be 80+% of the influence on your life by not using it. It is very straightforward.
> China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes.
China (and other malicious actors) have demonstrably leveraged social media platforms to inflame tensions, create anti-American and anti-Western sentiment, and more. With platforms like TikTok they were able to more directly influence content, they understand the algorithm that is used, &c.
But let me put it to you from a different angle. If you don't think China was or could have been using TikTok to influence Americans and westerners in general, then I'd suggest the US had nothing to do with, oh, idk, the Arab Spring. :)
> Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems.
Well they have other platforms for that, social credit score, TVs on every corner, &c. Much safer for me to have it American controlled so I don't have an authoritarian Chinese communist party trying to influence me or anyone around me, or further inflaming tensions for their own gain.
> You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner? Like, I hate all those guys so much that we're going to make everything they want at whatever price they want to pay ...? In the past it might have been possible to argue they were anti-American in their politics;
Well it's not just Americans and Canadiens, it's the EU too. The strategy was to leverage incredibly cheap labor (slave labor in some cases) and loose environmental restrictions to start manufacturing cheap goods and then move up the value chain. Inherently there's nothing to wrong with the approach (minus the slave labor and all of that), but as China continued to do so they did so while also undercutting competitiveness from other countries and blocs. They artificially devalue their currency, they routinely broke WTO rules so much so that other countries said to hell with it. The EU for example has historically tariffed Chinese products. Why? Because if they don't then local industries in the EU with long summer vacations and all of these nice things would be out-competed and out of business.
This isn't really controversial or anything. It's pretty well known, and from an American standpoint the point of view with respect to China is rather bipartisan.
Separately I don't particularly care who owns TikTok. I've never used it. But if someone is going to own Tiktok and people are going to voluntarily subject themselves to these algorithms and the owner’s intentions, I'd prefer it to be Americans (or another western country).
My point is, you are not on the same team as Larry Ellison, if you are a typical American.
Larry is part of the problem.
geographic "from <> to <>" slogans are very commonly used in such contexts. Basically you take a are geographically split into multiple regions, make a "from->to" slogan which treats this areas as one unit in between and imply through it that it should be all homogeneous (weather it's about country boraders or ethnicity)
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Like e.g. the German national anthem is based on a song from 1841, i.e. it predates WW1,2 and in turn the current German border.
Due to this the first verse refers to boarder rivers which by now lie outside of Germany (and and has other issues related to sever misinterpretation of most of the verse).
This lead to it being abused by Nazis and later neo-nazis to mean Germany should go to war and size various border regions.
But Germany did need a national anthem and this song has a lot of important history meaning unrelated to WW2/Nazis. So west Germany decided to make it the anthem again, but only sing the 3rd verse for official occasions. Through due to continuous abuse of neo-nazies of the first verse this was changed with reunification and today only the 3rd verse is the official national anthem.
Anyway I got a bit off topic but "from <> to <> verses" crossing country boarders (or "ethnic" boarders if used in some "ethnic" context) are most times "pretend to be harmless" slogans of extremists, even if they have a history where they had other meaning (like with the first verse of the song the German national anthem is based on).
Only one side is an illegally occupying power who took the land by force from the people who were peacefully living there.
And don't quote me events from ~2000 years ago.
If everyone held grudges that long the whole world would be at war.
The people in the West bank currently being driven from their homes - they aren't a threat to Israel - they are just farmers working their land. Trying to pick their olives.
It's a false equivalence to say there are two sides, on the one hand and the other.
Given the number of Jews who live in areas under full Palestinian authority (or in any other Arab countries), we know that “free” means “Jew-Free”.
And given the way you refer to all of it as “Occupation”. Including the parts that were legally purchased, developed, and built by Jews, the parts where Jews and Muslims live freely together as equal citizens, the implication is that all of that needs to be dismantled as well.
What’s your intention with the Jews who live there?
> What’s your intention with the Jews who live there?
Eh? I have no 'intention', nor implied master plan - nor indeed have any personal stake in the region - other than to say that the running sore of the obvious injustice creates problems well beyond it's borders. Militant Islam is of course a problem - but I'd say Israel's current actions are one of the best recruiting agents.
I will say is that Arabs, Christians, others and Jews were quite happily living side by side in the region before the Zionist colonial project, there is no reason that can't be the situation again.
There may be some racism as in every other country, but Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Jews in Israel (and if you visit, you will see them living side by side and getting on well). Asides from being able to travel to certain areas, which the Arabs are allowed but Jews are not. And that military service is optional for Arabs.
It doesn’t matter if Christians and Jews were historically tolerated in Muslim countries. There’s no other country in the world that has proportionally this many Muslims and Jews living together. To think that you can replace it with a better model based on neighbouring countries is ridiculous or disingenuous.
That is simply not true. For example the 2023 Citizenship and Residency Revocation Law specifically only applies to one type of Israeli citizen.... guess which one?
>there may be some racism as in every other country
The question is whether than racism is part of the law and policy of the country. It's quite clear, under the current leadership, that if you are 'other' then you are second class.
Here's another example:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/02/knesset-must-...
> The West Bank is under occupation, Israel itself is not.
So Israels actions in the West bank are thus somehow not relevant???
> with a better model based on neighbouring countries is ridiculous or disingenuous
Senior members of the current Israeli government ( and I specifically make a distinction here between the goverment and the country ), are quite openly calling what can only be described as ethnic cleansing.
And as well as the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel is currently also occupying parts of Lebanon, Syria, and also appears to want a war with Iran.
The solution isn't to cleanse/kill everyone else, the solution is to find a way to live side by side.
The Key "Exclusionary" Mechanism The Funding Clause: The law authorizes the Interior Minister to revoke citizenship or residency only if the person was convicted of a terror offense and it is proven they (or someone on their behalf) received monetary benefits from the Palestinian Authority in connection with that act.
Practical Effect: Because only Palestinian prisoners/families receive these specific PA stipends, the law does not apply to Jewish citizens who commit acts of terror, even if they are convicted of the same offenses.
ie It's if you are a terrorist and receive money ( like a pension,wage, benefit ) from the PA. It's quite clearly constructed to not include Jewish right-wing terrorist acts.
This was openly discussed, as the intent, in the Knesset when the law was passed.
See: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/12/how-israel-used-dis...
None of this is surprising if you look at what the key political players have said in public - they are openly supremacist.
There is a reason for the ICC,ICJ cases.
Can't reply to post below due to depth - so reply here:
The point is that only terrorism funded by the PA counts - why add the PA funding qualification??? So for example if some settler movement funds people to terrorize Palestinians - it's not covered.
Surely terrorism is terrorism? The PA qualification aim is clear.
That's why all citizens are not equal before the law. It's very clearly specifically designed to favour one set of people over another.
It's quite open - I don't understand why you feel the need to redefine black as white.
There’s nothing in the law about the race of the perpetrators. That the Palestinian authority only pays Arabs to kill innocent Israelis doesn’t make Israeli law unequal.
AFIK no
But once you do take it over and have no morals, why not also use it for such?
This is to be studied by geeks, how to approach non-technical audiences.
To convince them otherwise, you need to offer a more compelling emotional argument, but politicians and lobbyist already tell them that they're going to get raped and killed in the street unless they support their agenda.
So what do you do? How do you come up with an emotional argument that's more compelling than that?
It's another ad of course but a pretty funny response and sums up the issue nicely.
now that also brings us to the good news, which is a lot of people really don't like any form of internet connected cameras and the culture related to surveillance to it is very different here.
Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OheUzrXsKrY
With that said, I'm not sure it will have any long term effect on them... sure some people return their stuff, make a post about it, but it's like (insert people with certain political affiliation) cancelling (insert big brand) by burning their stuff. It makes a splash in social, but I'm not sure it really significantly changes user behavior.
FWIW, I don't like being a tech downer/skeptic, but every fucking thing is like this now. Every social media is being turned into surveillance. Every cloud-based application, no matter how useful, is bending over so the state can shove it's hand up it's ass and turn it into yet another way for the Christofascists to shove their bullshit into my life. I'm fucking tired, y'all. I'm tired of finding something cool and interesting, and then needing to audit the entire backend to see if my friends and I are endangering ourselves by engaging with it. I'm tired of seeing something fucking useful, a goddamn video doorbell, and being like "oh that's pretty fucking nice!" and then having to box it up years on because the company that built it is going to turn my porch into a node in the nationwide Good Citizen network.
And it's asymmetric because they seemingly NEVER get tired. There's just a whole like 1/3 of the population out there that seemingly never even sleeps, they're just constantly trying to figure out how to make my life just slightly fucking worse, either for profit or to advance their weird evangelical agenda.
I'm so, so, profoundly sick of these freaks.
Edit: And please just SPARE ME the both sides horseshit. Yeah both sides have problems, but one side is fucking dragging us back to 16th century social politics, and THEY'RE the ones I'm sick more of.
It's not a partisan issue. From leftist utopias to god-fearing Texan ranch lands, the police are abusing power and harassing innocent people. Trying to bring religion and partisanship (in one word, even) doesn't help your message.
I'm sorry I'm having a hard time remembering the role leftists are playing in the US right now what with the Executive, Congressional and Judicial branches all being stacked to the tits with Republicans, right up to the top with our dementia-addled conman of a president, sleepily signing into law the policies that will see us excised as the center of world economics.
I don't see Ring as a politics problem, I see it as a policy problem. Just because something is legal in the federated, ad hoc instance doesn't mean it is advisable to systematize.
Preemptively, the exact sort of "BUT BIDEN BAD" horseshit occurring elsewhere in the thread. And again, yes, Biden bad. Biden is an inept old man who was far out of his depth, who failed, completely, to hold anyone accountable for the atrocity against the Republic that was January 6th. But again, he, and to be sure, the Democrats as a whole, failed that, and whilst that is true, the other side is currently ushering in the end of American global influence and they're going to make it so no American citizen will EVER be able to own ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. So I am simply not entertaining this "both sides" horseshit anymore.
Both sides DO have problems. One has distinctly WAY more fucking problems, and also, WAY more fucking power. If pointing out this obvious fucking reality makes me partisan, or biased, whatever. Partisan I am.
If I'm to be marched into a meat grinder I at least reserve the right to tell the people doing it to me they fucking suck.
the both sides thing is right, you dont remember the lockdowns over a cold, mandated behavioral changes, and countries sending people to "isolation camps" and pressing digital id?
yeah tho its just the "christofascists" huh?
you people only care when illegal invaders get targeted. your outrage is performative.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/flock-haters-cro...
You let Trump announce that there has to be a national gun registry or mandated vaccines. You see he even stepped away from bragging about the vaccines only happened for Covid because of “Operation Warp Speed” under his administration. That should have been something that any politician would be proud of.
BTW, the only impressive thing that happened in his entire first administration is the speed at which the vaccines were developed and his not letting the economy collapse because of the stimulus and he can’t take credit for either because of his own base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement
So I had first and second level connections to people who were involved in the civil rights movement. My mom knew someone or knew who knew someone that could get me a call with almost anyone of influence in the Black community nationally. I went to school with a lot of their children - at least the 2nd or 3rd level connections.
The civil rights movement was very aware of things like this at the time
But it's seeming like the trigger for it will be