Reminder: Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has defended child pornography, saying that stopping it is “gatekeeping”.
His position was essentially:
- AI systems sometimes produce harmful or illegal content despite safeguards.
- Governments shouldn’t use that as a reason to pressure platform gatekeepers to remove an entire service.
Important distinctions:
- He said he defends open platforms and free speech.
- He explicitly said he does not defend the harmful content itself.
Yeah, was pretty sure it was something like that…
I used AI to make a Home Alone themed digital Christmas card last year. It was completely PG. But it was a nightmare to do as I kept tripping over gates on account of Kevin being a child and Home Alone being a copyrighted property.
I went all the way to the dark end of the AI gen spectrum, to where kiddie porn abdolutely happens, but the product I produced there was unsatisfactory. So I went alI went back to the top players with all the gates and worked around them by reworking my prompts for what seemed like forever.
1 year earlier I would’ve gotten the results I wanted with my first prompt, maybe tweaking fonts for the words, fixing spelling errors, or making minor visual features. 5min tops.
It really turned me off from continuing to play with AI.
Those gates have gotten really nasty.
It’s as though users are treated as guilty in advance and then denied the opportunity to prove themselves innocent.
Completely backwards attitude and practice.
All mega corps are shit and run by assholes.
Except Costco. For now at least.
As someone who just tried to sign up for a Costco membership online and couldn’t get past the first page of registration, on multiple devices, Costco is kinda shit too, lol.
Oh, Costco is in the stone ages still in a lot of ways, it’s pretty unsettling sometimes. But also using tried and true methods and waiting decades to adopt modern tech saves a ton of cash… Which doesn’t just benefit the stock holders when you’re a company like Costco.
Go in in person on a weekday before 3pm and sign up at the service desk.
Just go into the store. They’ll sign you up.
Planning on it lol. Was just mildly annoyed because I needed a product I have to order through their website anyway and I’ll probably need to get a month supply somewhere else to hold me over until I can get the membership and finally get it shipped.
Thanks, John Google.
they talk about alternative stores as well but fail to do a great reporting on the issue … a alternative appstore that need’s google approve it’s simply not a real alternative.
From https://keepandroidopen.org/ In August 2025, Google announced ↗ that as of September 2026, it will no longer be possible to develop apps for the Android platform without first registering centrally with Google. This registration will involve:
- Paying a fee to Google
- Agreeing to Google’s Terms and Conditions
- Providing government identification
- Uploading evidence of the developer’s private signing key
- Listing all current and future application identifiers
Good news is GrapheneOS is planned to be available on Motorola phones. Probably time to leave Google and Microsoft behind.
Ever since Samsung locked my bootloader in a surreptitious update, I’m eager to jump ship.
Have they figured out how to fix the banking app issue?
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos
Check compatibility here.
Thanks so much my bank is supported! I just wish my device was too. I’ll probably get one that supports it because I really want to move away from google
Wow not bad, that’s a pretty big list.
NGL I was excited to hear the news of official GrapheneOS devices coming, hopefully they won’t just be their flagship devices but the whole product stack.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t this be used as a precedent for other app makers that are screwed over by google’s monopoly?
If I’m reading the article correctly it’s dropping for all app developers. Not just Epic.
1/5 is still a lot.
So after all that, Epic just got the commission cut by 1/3? Wonder how long it’ll take their savings to equal what they spent on legal fees and the revenue they missed while Fortnite wasn’t on the Play Store.
edit: Ars’ coverage says attorneys’ fees were included in the settlement, so I guess Epic only needs to make up the missed revenue.
Alright so
Line must go up, so where are they going to recoup that loss of revenue?
Ads as far as the eye can see… and more!
I suspect it’ll be ignored like so much else in this hysterical market. The question is how can they spin the new metrics; creative reporting abounds.
Interesting differences in the apple case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
