Old guy here. I've come to enjoy watching leftist twitch on my second monitor while I work/slack off. While I've long been an advocate for Palestine, I've learned a lot more about both Israel and Palestine from watching Hasan Piker. Sometimes the streamer drama can get pretty annoying though.

On the other hand, a lot of my millennial friends from high school didn't really give a shit about politics back then. Now, nearly all of them are leftist. And if not, progressive lib at the least. Maybe that's just 20 years of me feeding them a steady stream of propaganda, but I think especially Bernie and all the shit that came after has pushed folks in my circle left.

but I am unsure whether I'd call him a predator (of course, language differences apply, too). That's just because I need words to express the predatory nature of people like Maxwell who prey on teens and YA.

What do you mean by this? Beahm was preying on a minor by sexting that minor and asking to meetup at twitch con. Are you specifically referring to people operating child sex rings? In either case, I don't think anyone else uses your ultra-specific definition. For myself, and I assume most others, pedophiles are merely a type of predator. For example, the show, to catch a predator, was about creeps sexting kids online. This is precisely what Beahm was doing so I don't think it's unreasonable to call him a predator.

Very true. I've seen no info regarding the minor's age, which honestly is probably a good thing. The victim's identity should be protected.

Twitch con was in California. And in the legal sense, almost an adult is a minor. So yes, this is a crime. And immoral. And worse than cheating. And yes, I'm ok with personally attacking pedos and those who defend them.

Also a lot of those states use age-gap/romeo and Juliet laws. In most states it's illegal for a 38 year old man to solicit a minor.

Raped at twitch con is better than raped in an alley? Jesus fucking Christ.

I'm guessing libertarian and pedo, you probably don't actually give a shit about Beahm.

So you agree that Beahm is a pedo? You replied to a person that does not think he is a pedo with "fair take". Maybe you replied to the wrong person.

The country is America dumbass. Age of consent is 18 in America. She was a minor, he was trying to solicit her at twitchcon. If you want to go the legal angle, that is a crime.

That's not societal definition, that's the clinical definition. But If you want to be pedantic, yes you are right. He's actually an ephebophile, which is still detestable and is still illegal, still immoral, and still very fucking creepy.

Sexting a child is wrong. How is that hard for you to understand?

Are you a Doc fan? Are you a pedo/ephebophile? Libertarian? What's going on here?

Speaking of ruining it for everyone... Paid Plex shares do exactly that for those of us using Plex for friends and family.

Pretty sure Trump is AIPAC's choice. Or they'll donate to both campaigns.

He admitted to sexting a minor. How the fuck is he not guilty and why are you out here trying to defend pedophilia?

No it's not. Beahm, a 38 year old man at the time, was sexting a minor. That makes him a pedo.

It's called statutory rape. And he was married and 38 at the time. And he was also trying to meet this person at twitch con. And this is the same year of twitch con that he was caught cheating on his wife.

No amount of spin makes this OK. Please stop trying to justify pedophilia in defense of your favorite streamer. Sexting a minor is not ok, and the fact that even Beahm himself couldn't spin this in a way that's good for him should tell you something.

I'd be willing to bet humans also innately believe the earth is flat (in your day-to-day life it certainly doesn't look like we're on a spherical object hurling through space), but that doesn't make it so.

Could the same not be said about Hexbear/Lemmy? While there certainly have been cases where people acting directly at the behest of capitol have been caught directly editing Wikipedia, these changes are typically caught and reversed.

These open platforms reflect the values and biases of the people who contribute to them. Leftists contribute to Hexbear. Liberals contribute to Wikipedia (because liberalism is the dominant global ideology). So it may appear that capitol is directly editing the pages, but in reality, capitol is manufacturing consent at a global scale, and that is reflected on Wikipedia because the consumers of that manufactured consent become the producers when they go to edit Wikipedia. When cracks in the neoliberal messaging begin to become evident to the masses, so too does Wikipedia reflect that: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/21/headlines/wikipedia_declares_adl_an_unreliable_source_on_the_israel_palestine_conflict

To be clear about timeframe, I'm talking early days of the TCP/IP protocol. Like when HTTP was being drafted, the days of BBSs. If you look at the fundamental design of the Internet, it was intended to be regulated by subject matter experts from around the world. Not for and by any one country, but for use by everyone, borders be damned.

Software monetization was certainly happening, but largely not by way of the Internet, software was sold in stores and magazines and by mail via floppy disks.

Like sure, it didn't take long for nerds in their garages to figure out that their lists of URLs could be profitable, but this was not instantly recognized by the ruling class.

Wikipedia certainly isn't perfect, liberalism is the primary global ideology so it should come as no surprise that most of the contributors are liberals and therefore liberalism is present throughout.

But open access to knowledge is a good thing. I much prefer liberal wiki which is free to anyone with an Internet connection than buying collections of liberal encyclopedias and then having to periodically rebuy them (and they were not cheap!) for updated information.

I recommend everyone read Techno-Feudalism by Yanis Varoufakis for a really solid Marxist analysis of the Internet. He described much better than I could how the Internet went from a free and open commons to a tool of oppression, and speculates how the Internet may one day become a tool for liberation.

I disagree. The Internet was mostly good in the early days, not because of the people using it, but because corporations hadn't yet figured out how profitable it would become. Everything was free, the standards/protocols all open, if someone made a thing for the Internet it was because they thought it would be useful, not because they thought it would make them a lot of money.

Look at Wikipedia, one of the last remnants of the early Internet. It's a mostly good tool because it hasn't been overrun by profit motive.

Profit motives are destroying the Internet. Because profit is divorced from the actual value a thing provides. Enshitification works because a worse technology results in higher profits.

I'm sure they do, likely have their own internal security team as well as contract security work out. The purpose of hiring hackers isn't to make the company unhackable, it's to make it harder, more time consuming and costly to hack the company.

Yeah good point. CCNA might be a decent choice too. Networking might be even preferable over tech support as it should be less time talking to strangers.