Proctor Zakharov

I had another thought regarding the vtuber Discord fiasco that is the Current Thing[TM] to talk about in the commentary scene. I see a lot of people saying things like 'children can pretend to be adults too easily, it is pointless to try and proactively get rid of them'. I would like to push back on this argument by making a comparison. Specifically, I'd like to highlight the DMCA's Safe Harbour Policy, which at one time (before corporations banded together to effectively destroy it in all but name) enabled websites to continue operating without excessive harassment from copyright holders. In brief, the Safe Harbour Policy was a good faith agreement that if a service provider was judged to be taking reasonable steps to prevent copyright infringement on their platform (banning non-transformative works, blocking torrent links, etc), they would not be held immediately and personally liable if any cases slipped through the cracks. Due diligence, in other words. This concepts of the Safe Harbour Policy and Due Diligence in relation to DMCA can be translated 1-for-1 into the argument about keeping minors out of adult spaces on places like Discord. Just like with the DMCA, it should be tacitly acknowledged that keeping minors out of certain spaces is very difficult. A determined minor can lie, forge evidence and engage in layered deceptions in order to access online spaces. This is a fact. However, it should never be an excuse, just like saying 'well there is no point in deleting copyrighted material on sight because people will just share it elsewhere anyway' was not an excuse service providers could use and retain Safe Harbour protections. The NSFW Safe Harbour should be applied in cases where the service provider (or more accurately webhost/discord admin/etc) can be clearly established to have done their Due Diligence in keeping minors out of any adult spaces they oversee. This includes banning anyone who admits to being a minor, or is credibly suspected of being a minor. A service provider should lose Safe Harbour protections if they are found to not have taken a proactive stance in this matter, or employed moderators who selectively applied the rules banning minors or suspected minors. Service providers found to be violating the DMCA are routinely sued for tens of millions of dollars; life ruining sums of money. Service providers found to be harbouring minors in their NSFW spaces are routinely branded paedophiles; a life-ruining accusation. I consider these two penalties comparable in severity. Perhaps more importantly, false accusations can still be life ruining, due to the reputational damage and difficulty of proving one's innocence in ambiguous cases. Therefore, it is rational, sensible and logical for service providers to do their Due Diligence. Even if they know it won't be 100% effective. The point of the SHP was not to eliminate piracy and copyright infringement, it was to prevent false positives and encourage service providers to be proactive in moderating their spaces. Let's put it in terms that the right-of-centre people currently being targeted by these accusations would understand. If a woman were to say to you 'if so many people are stabbed in the street by migrants and I can't tell which migrants will stab me, I'll just treat every migrant nicely and take no precautions because I may as well be nice and risk being stabbed than be mean and racist to the good migrants' then you'd call that woman an idiot. The same logic applies to moderating online spaces. Yes, there are many minors out there. Yes, you probably can't tell who many of them are. Yes, it is still a good idea to take precautions, even if that risks the occasional false positive. The consequences of being branded negligent in this matter are every bit as devastating as getting stabbed by a crack-addled Somalian. For reference, I strongly believe that any server that has any NSFW content whatsoever should be permanently and irrevocably age-gated. No underage users whatsoever. Anyone who claims they're a minor should be banned immediately. Anyone who says something like 'I'm 12, what is this?' - even as a clear and obvious joke - should have their message deleted and be issued a warning at bare minimum. No exceptions.

x.com/CuppyCakiee/st… I think the funniest thing here is that Stronny is probably the most left-leaning person imaginable. Sex workers are always going to be left of Mao. But even that isn't enough for the trans brigade. Anything less than absolute indulgence is unacceptable.

@zuzumizuchi The rest of you makes up for it. That and the mask. :)

i'm fugly 🥀

He's Cockless! He likes Ponuts! He's gay! #Coreofmidas @NBinted

Since the "SungWon Cho/ProZD ruined voice acting by pushing for authentic casting" narrative is making the rounds again, with both sides accusing the other of lying, let's break this down step by step. 1. SungWon Cho's Original Statement SungWon Cho's paraphrased quote was lifted from his "Double Toasted Interview" from May 2, 2023 (referred to as "SUNGWON CHO (@ProZD, 'GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK,' 'BORDERLANDS 3') INTERVIEW | Double Toasted" on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=2m_v6J…) from 25:16 to 26:32). The transcript with full context has been provided below and the relevant clip has been attached to this post. SUNGWON CHO (PROZD): "I definitely would have more opportunities if I were white, for sure. There's no doubt about that. Uh...but I think there have been changes in a positive way...um...and not just for, you know, Asians, but for, you know, all s...all, you know, for different races, different genders, you know. Um...there have been steps and it has been incre...I mean, even comparing now to, like, let's say, like ten...five, ten years ago, it's definitely changed, like...I...I think studios are much more aware of... um..."Hey, we should, you know, cast authentically" you know...uh...so there have been some good steps, we still have a long way to go. Um...and I...I'm just hoping that, you know, as time goes on, you know, more and more doors will open for, you know, diverse...diverse talent. Uh...and we still have a long way to go, though, but I...I...I'm hopeful that, you know, it will, continue to get better as time goes on." 2. Summary of What Was Said and Conclusion Based on the above, one can honestly claim that ProZD made the following statements: i. Historically, various minorities have been either overlooked or disadvantaged when it comes to voice acting roles. ii. "Casting authentically" - i.e. allowing members of a given race to voice fictional characters of their race - is now being more seriously considered. Take note of the fact that he did not say that casting authentically was the only course of action here, just that it was one possible one. Also note that he did not say that it was only one he would accept/endorse, but that he supported it. So the claim that he floated/promoted the idea is true, but, to be completely fair and charitable here, there's a bit more nuance to this. The irony that racist leftists/progressive have imposed weird unofficial restrictions trying to make sure that minority and white voice actors "stay in their lanes" and only be allowed to voice fictional characters whose racial heritages or physical realities match theirs is very, very real, though. That being said, I seriously doubt that ProZD had enough pull behind the scenes that the lion's share of the blame for this poisonous trend can be pinned on him. He just became the poster child for it. 3. My Personal Opinion I also have serious doubts about the exact level of discrimination minorities have faced in the American voice acting industry historically because I can think of several non-white actors who were quite active from the 1970s to the 1990s and beyond who have voiced many iconic characters, including: - Scatman Crothers, who voiced Jazz in the G1 "Transformers" cartoon. - Arthur Burghardt, who was one of the voices for Devastator in the G1 "Transformers" cartoon and is arguably best known as the voice of Destro in "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero". - Cree Summer, who was the original voice of Penny in "Inspector Gadget". - James "Uncle Phil" Avery, who was the original voice of the Shredder in the 1980s "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon. - Phil LaMarr, the voice of Samurai Jack and Hermes Conrad in "Futurama". - Keith David, the voice of Goliath in "Gargoyles" and of Spawn in the cartoon of the same name. - Janice Kawaye, the voice of Gi in "Captain Planet and the Planeteers" and of Jenny "XJ-9" Wakeman in "My Life as a Teenage Robot". - François Chau, the voice of Quick Kick in "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero". - Keone Young, the voice of Storm Shadow in "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero". - Makoto "Mako" Iwamatsu, best known to cartoon fans as the original voice of Aku in "Samurai Jack". That's not to say that discrimination didn't exist or that I'm an expert on the subject, just that I don't fully buy ProZD's argument. Your mileage may vary.

Take good care of her. #KirschedArt

I've been a content creator for over a decade. Some of my chatters finished uni, got married, have kids and stop by every now and then. I was there through it all. Some shared important milestones for themselves or their kids that stuck with me. I still remember my original founders. My first subscribers. People who were there for milestones. The oldest sub streak in my channel is 113 months. That's almost a decade of them sharing bits and pieces about themselves or their lives. Last year, I offered Christmas Cards to the people who write thoughtful comments in my YouTube because I recognized their username and wanted to thank them for watching my content and being positive individuals. If people that have been around suddenly vanish, it's noticeable. It's normal to miss certain interactions. Or to look fondly upon them. At the same time, that shouldn't be confused for personal relationships or crossing boundaries. I don't think it's parasocial to notice someone being gone personally. It would be if they went and started to dig into where they are now 😅

@LAPONKOTSU Don't brainworm, your voice is still far more understandable than that of most people.

i feel bad for everyone cause my speech is getting worse and the slight lisp and weird accent i feel is making me impossible to understand

RT @KirscheVerstahl: "Our active campaign to ruin you didn't have the full effect we wanted it to, therefore it didn't happen and we did no…

Kirsche's detractor made her "lose" her partnership with an underbaked game she liked. Then she made more than 160k$ with her Gamersupps cup. Most likely one of Gamersupps most financially successful campaigns. Kirsche detractor made her "lose" her Mythic management contract and she's had more than 3.2k orders on her personal merch website. With the top two items being the most expensive available in the store. An absolutely absurd feat for a talent run merch store. Every time the same people talk about Kirsche negatively they only make her more popular and relevant. If you dislike/hate Kirsche those are the people you should be upset about. They handed her success on a silver platter. [...] For months they would tweet about her everyday. Plastering her face all over everyone's timelines. Making any legitimate criticism impossible as they wrote slander, took clips out of context and simply made shit up. Constantly, everyday/week some for nearly an entire year. In short one of the most absurd marketing campaigns I have ever seen. The more they made her to be this "evil controversial person" the more people got curious. So they started watching. And many of them kept watching. Kirsche was blessed with having some of the stupidest, most dislikeable and morally dubious individuals start to anti her. As they started running a large scale, long duration marketing campaign FOR FREE. They made it very easy for Kirsche to convert casual fans into dedicated, money spending and active fans. Humans tend to create closer bounds and stronger communities when constantly under attack from all sides for an extended period of time. The effect of that success is slowly becoming visible. Kirsche used to stream "current news" content once a week. Now partisan politics is most of her content. Political VTuber as a niche has been growing in the background, many of them clearly inspired by Kirsche. As someone who values VTubing as its own culture which takes roots from anime and idol culture. I write these words with sadness. Yet these words remain factual. [...] That is why I hate Kirsche's anti. Not because I love Kirsche, but because they made Kirsche the juggernaut she's slowly becoming. In a little over two years she went from barely being relevant, to multi-tousand CCV. [...] Now some of you may ask me the following question : why am I talking about this right now. After my time in university I met and kept in touch with various researchers and academics in the communication field. One of them, a political communication researcher, happened to call me today : "hey, I've been told about how those VTubers you like talking about are starting to influence Japanese, American and Filipino politics. Specifically I was told about this american woman called Kirsche. Do you know anything about her ?" One of the most surreal professional/academic conversation I had to be a part of. 😵‍💫

I don’t care if people are allowed to have whimsy, anyone who genuinely enjoys Star Wars right now is a victim of rotting and eroded brain cells. Primed by social media to enjoy literal garbage spoon fed into their bird like gullets. Social and emotional capacity of fish.

Oh, famous Vtweeter returns. After dramatically, declaring he's departing for good and its a final decision that he would stick to like a principle and this is farewell. Came crawling back to X, because starting all those harassment campaigns and the clout were hard to resist huh? Imagine my shock.

🚨BREAKING Essex police have TURNED OFF their live facial recognition cameras as they were catching too many black people 🇬🇧 They have also admitted that it was EXTREMELY rare the cameras would pick somebody up who WASN’T on the watchlist. They put up cameras to catch bad people, the cameras caught the bad people who happened to be predominantly black so they turned the cameras off 😑

Valen's and Bint's actions didn't have their full effect because Kirsche already had a dedicated and established fanbase to see through your bullshit. Just because the damage was apparently "minimal" and not to your satisfaction doesn't mean it didn't have a degree of success. Let's also be honest if Kirsche lost all of her sponsors and even the means to stream your whole gaggle would still think that's not enough.

Liar Liar, pants on fire

RT @Spydrbro: The main reason why Kirsche is hiding in a bunker now is because the Three Dumbass’s, NBinted, Ana Valens, and Nyara lead a c…

just a little something i whipped up for my breastie @duroppucharming ! 💕 #vtuber #envtuber #duroppucharming #duroppu #raeteachan #tsunderae #mermaid #dropbear #fyp #twitch #youtube #tiktok #art #artist #vtuberart #vtuberartist #OCeNA

Gonna be honest...I'm really, really not sold on the Meet N' Greet Raffle system. I'm there to see my oshi (everyone knows that is by now) and I get the feeling I won't get that chance if I don't pay top dollar. Even then it's not a gurantee. It's already taking pretty much all the money I can save and scrounge up (even then I am hoping it'll be enough) just to go to the con, and one the major reasons I am going is just to briefly say hi to my oshi and tell her how much I appreciate what she does for me. This is the only major event I plan on going to. The flight to Cali and back, along with hotel stay costs, and everything else on top of the ticket is extremely steep. Again, I want to support her, her fellow talents, and her agency. I want PhaseCon to succeed...but I have some concerns and reservations I wanted to voice. I hope I am misunderstanding how the system works and my concerns are misplaced, but I thought I would voice them regardless. I still plan on going to the best of my ability.

@PhaseConnect Bruh...

今日でデビュー6周年です！ 6万人もいるVtuberの中で、たくさんの人に見つけていただき こんなに長く活動できること、感謝してもしきれません！ これからもみんなとゆっくり長く一緒にすごしていけたらうれしいなっ 7年目もよろしくおねがいします！ おめでとうリプお願いします🦌

When your self awareness is so terrible that you don't realize that content creators from various backgrounds, belief systems and interests have come together as friends because, in part, they have a common enemy, being you. Hey Nyara, maybe you and your friends should've behaved like decent people instead of trying to commit life ruinatiom. Also, no one harassed you, crybully.