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Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

bsky.app

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Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil and India have created alternatives to Mastercard/Visa duopoly. EU is seeking to do the same.

I'm pretty sure that I know what the answer is (sadly), but I'll try anyways: Any chance folks in the US can use these, in the US? This is a genuine question, although I don't have my hopes up. It would be nice to have some actual competition / choices

I think he's referring to the SEPA network, which isn't really an alternative to credit cards. I've only seen it used to pay for rent and bills. Theoretically there's SEPA Instant payments, but I've never seen any merchants that use it.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#252
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not need our hyperscaler minders telling us what content we can and cannot consume. This ought to be grounds to litigate antitrust. This should not be happening. We need web-based app installs without scare walls ("downloading from the internet is dangerous"), without hidden settings menus to enable them ("Settings > Apps > Special app access > Install unknown apps"), and without any interference or meddling fr…

I’m generally with you, but I am not prepared to say companies should be forced to host and distribute content they believe reflects badly on them. That and I don’t see how Google and Apple can both be monopolies in mobile. Is this the “Ford has a monopoly on Mustangs” argument? Never found that persuasive. Now, reframe as duopoly, and maybe layer in that a platform owner who curates their App Store must allow altern…

> That and I don’t see how Google and Apple can both be monopolies in mobile.

Why not? Monopolies can be market-specific, and Apple does indeed fully control the market of iOS app distribution.

Whether they also are a monopolist on mobile operating systems, smartphones etc. is a separate question.

> I am not prepared to say companies should be forced to host and distribute content they believe reflects badly on them.

Me neither, but in turn I don't think they should be allowed to act as the sole distributor for their respective platforms.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#253
post #34

Sad day for freedom of expression. [Spoilers] For those who haven't played, DDLC has subject matter related to self-harm, mental health, suicide that sort of thing. It generally treats the subjects seriously. It has content warnings on it, so people know what they are getting into. Its weird how we seem much more hung up on censoring video games we are than books or movies. There is way more disturbing books and movi…

Anecdotally, from when I did first amendment activism, my lawyers would always recommend that I stick to doing it with dead tree editions as much as possible. Literal book banning and/or burning has direct judicial precedent that is hard to contest, enforced by lots of precedent.

The problem with moving out of the dead tree medium is that suddenly a whole host of alternative, untested legal theories can be thrown at you. Even if they are preposterous or 'obviously wrong' to the lay person, these alternative theories increase the cost of litigation, and limits the quick remedies you can seek, because the judge has to consider now if your situation is different from precedent.

If your adversary is well funded they can just keep on throwing up 'but what about...' theories to the court for years and years, effectively achieving censorship without setting any meaningful legal precedent.

Then they can reuse this strategy again and again, and anytime a litigant gets close to winning they settle out of court, avoiding clear legal precedent and thus preserving this 'legal purgatory' path (settlements do not create legal precedent).

Basically, they learned from experience with books how to avoid other media getting the same level of effective legal protection.

It's a clever exploit on the legal system, but not great for actual justice.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you charge for your app - and how much free labor and bandwidth do you give away? Apple gives away millions.

> Only if you charge for your app - and how much free labor and bandwidth do you give away? Apple gives away millions. I guess a ~2% fee would cover those costs.

Not on a free app, and I don't think Apple should be coerced to host content for free and cross-subsidize it from other paid content.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#255

1bil+ people have surrendered their right to artistic expression to Google, and another 1bil+ to Apple, and another 1bil+ to Microsoft. Many more billions have surrendered it to Visa and Mastercard. The world will only continue to get worse for the foreseeable future as five corporations assert global control over what is allowed to be published. It is mournful knowing that humanity's peak is behind us.

Surrendered in what way? Do those billion of people exclusively only use android/iOS and only pay with Visa/Mastercard?

These companies control content by exerting pressure on those they either control directly or indirectly, by denying them and their customers access to their services, if they in any way threaten the profitability of their business.

And when this kind of power it's consolidated with a handful of companies, you leave people with nowhere to go for any kind of real success. So you're forced to compromise your vision in order to get any shelf space.

Money money money money money money money money money.

Money.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#256
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only if you charge for your app - and how much free labor and bandwidth do you give away? Apple gives away millions. I guess a ~2% fee would cover those costs.

Not on a free app, and I don't think Apple should be coerced to host content for free and cross-subsidize it from other paid content.

> Not on a free app

30% of 0 is also 0. They are already cross-subsidizing it.

> I don't think Apple should be coerced to host content for free and cross-subsidize it from other paid content.

Nobody said they should be.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trigger warnings are not there to prevent people from being "offended" or to avoid emotions they may "get to them." trigger warnings are so folks who have experienced traumatic events can avoid having a panic response triggered unexpectedly. traumatic events are not a normal part of life and fortunately most people are never forced to experience something truly traumatic. Uncontrolled exposure does not build up "immu…

Trigger warnings have been quite heavily researched at this point and at best they seem to have no positive impact to overcoming traumatic events and a some of the studies have shown them to be a negative. Put 'scientific support for trigger warnings' in your favorite search engine and you'll find meta-analysis, RCTs, other types of studies, reviews, as well as discussions from the APS, other psychology and psychiatr…

All those papers look at the difference between "consuming content without being given a trigger warning" and "consuming content after being given a trigger warning."

There has been no proper research on the effectiveness of "being given a trigger warning, and then not consuming the content because of it." Which seems to be the most important factor to consider when it's about avoid sudden panic responses.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it could use a few trigger warnings There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that trigger warnings have a positive effect and growing evidence they are either ineffectual or actually negative.

I've seen evidence that reading a trigger warning and then consuming the content might be worse than just consuming the content without a trigger warning. But is there any good reason to doubt that trigger warnings can be helpful in the obvious way: someone sees the trigger warning and makes an informed decision to avoid the content?

The nature of that setup makes it incredibly difficult to research. You'd have to answer a negative.

Of course, that won't stop people that are anti-trigger warnings from using the irrelevant research (they don't work if you don't heed them... duh) to push their agenda.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it does suggest that avoiding your triggers [...] provides no benefit" This is the part I'm sceptical of. When I look this up, I mostly find articles like https://theconversation.com/proceed-with-caution-the-trouble... (and the underlying studies), which mainly address the question of whether reading a trigger warning and then consuming the potentially triggering content is better than just consuming the potentially…

> The article does briefly mention "unhealthy avoidance behaviours", but in the context of one university's opinion and without supporting evidence.) There's not much additional context here because avoidant behavior is basically universally understood to be a bad thing when it comes to the long term treatment of PTSD (this is separate from immediately/short-term after the event - different situation there) - there's…

Can you point me to some strong evidence that it's reliably counterproductive to avoid reading a book or watching a show that contains a trigger? I get that avoidance, in the sense of trying to push away all thoughts of the trauma and avoid all possible reminders, is generally considered counterproductive. And exposure, at the right times and in the right ways, can be very helpful (or absolutely necessary). But there's a big difference between those facts and the idea that it's bad for a PTSD sufferer to have the option of sometimes deciding not to actively expose themselves to triggering media.

Re: Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they are explicitly arguing that all of our best science is that trigger warnings are counter productive for getting better. Just a quick google search of 'scientific support for trigger warnings' will get you all sorts of meta analysis, RCT results, etc. on this. At best they don't seem to actually do anything, and at worst, they actively impede your ability to get better. That doesn't mean it's a mat…

Before we had Trigger Warnings as a term, we had movie and game ratings that said what you'd see if you watched/played: violence, blood/gore, nudity ... steam still does this, and as long as you don't use the politically charged TW expression, no-one seems to mind. For example, "Skyrim contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, and Language." "TW 1.0" as I remember it - the first time I…

This is why I generally prefer CW/Content warning; it is basically saying "this is what this contains", instead of putting any implications of it being triggering. So CW: suicide, for example, is just for anyone who doesn't really want to read about suicide at the moment, whether it's because they want a more upbeat story or somebody they knew just died
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