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Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

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Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#181

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

Don’t you think it’s a tad wrong to ban the chairman but not every other leader? Like China is especially sensitive?

The fact that the treatment is “special” leaves questions about the argument for inclusivity, at least in my book.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrutiny is justified. However, it should be within the scope of whether the product fulfills the need and should have nothing to do with "sovereignty" or "free speech rights," don't you think?

Can't believe how often I see this sentiment, and how nonsensical it is. We're private citizens, nothing prevents us from criticizing them for a wide variety of reasons. If you want to restrict yourself and ignore everything except the literal function of the product, you're free to do that, but you can't argue everyone else has to do the same. Or is your argument that we have some kind of social responsibility to ju…

No one is preventing you from criticizing them. I am just saying that criticism from the standpoint of free speech or sovereignty is inconsistent with the idea that you can satirize whatever or whoever you want.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#183
We seem to have a arrived at a stage of collective thought in which every action which is not directly confrontational against those that have a different belief system, is seen an acknowledgement of its support. Discussions on any topic have become so polarising that even those that try to remain neutral are being met with hostility and cancel culture treatment.

I have never been so pessimistic about the future of the world as I am today.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#184
post #138
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, doesn't the concept of a free society apply to private corporations as well? The government is not restricting you; the private company is exercising its right to run its business according to its own free will. The principle of a free society suggests that "if you don't like the company's policy, find another one or create your own." Is that wrong?

> the private company is exercising its right to run its business according to its own free will. Let's run with that. Should a company be allowed to own slaves? Should a company be allowed to do business with a company that owns slaves?

I think generally owning slaves goes against the idea of freedom (let's discard the concept one has the freedom to sell themselves for once). Thus company does not have the right to own slaves.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. I clicked on the link, thinking "Oh come on, it can't be THAT bad", and was presented with a literal endless gallery of slightly Manga-ish women with unfathomably huge boobs. Maybe, instead of turning the whole world into paperclips, the AI apocalypse will consist of the filling of every last speck of hard disk storage space with a trillion boringly similar synthetic jpegs of such charming ladies.

[flagged]

You're barking up the wrong tree.

Stable Diffusion allows for just about everything, including pornographic images and parodies of Xi Jingping.

MidJourney is a more controlled platform that doesn't allow for those things. And, because it's so tightly controlled, it hasn't degenerated into a mere parade of sexualized anime characters -- and it minimizes the political risk to its platform. MidJourney actually seems competently managed, in all seriousness...

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#186

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

Bowing to foreign authoritarian censorship is okay if it’s done for a rich man’s convenience? What a shitshow begging for regulation.

Not ridiculing xi is the regulation

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really perplexes me that there isn't any Internet Outrage about fetishisation of young Japanese girls; cartoons or otherwise. As far as I can see it's the one area of DEI that gets a free pass. It's really creepy.

what does anime waitfus have to do with DEI? There's no DEI initiative to help the disadvantaged weeaboos

They’ll be adding ‘minor attracted persons’ to the kiriarchy rubric any day now…

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#189
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It demonstrates that Chinas influence is already too big, making TikTok regulation even more urgent.

Unfortunately things are not so simple. You can find satire of Xi Jinping on TikTok right now: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh?l... , but not on Midjourney anymore. So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company.

[dead]

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#190

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

It really perplexes me that there isn't any Internet Outrage about fetishisation of young Japanese girls; cartoons or otherwise. As far as I can see it's the one area of DEI that gets a free pass. It's really creepy.

I’ve heard generative porns don’t seem to be as popular in Japanese male/boys market(for-women categories). Nor cats, strangely, considering the Internet is supposed to be obsessed with cute cats doing cute things.
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