Staying well out of this beef, but I've spent the last 48 hours in hysterics since I learned that an influencer has been getting fans to give her money by calling it "individual reparations."

That's the joke line I use when I want one of my white mates to get a round in!

I get how this dynamic emerges. Social media blurs the distinction between influencer and activist. Individuals are seen as totemic of a wider political struggle, so you want to see them succeed. And of course, supporting people's work is meaningful.

But it's not reparations.
Reparations isn't an individual white person giving money to an individual black or brown person (apart from when I'm broke and want a cocktail, in which case it's very much that).

It's about recognising that

a) colonialism and slavery have had a lasting economic impact
b) this impact is not just a legacy, or a long tail.

It has been reinforced by the underdevelopment and debt servitude of the Global South, and the exploitation of labour and resources from the Global South.
And unless you're a billionaire or a central bank, it's unlikely that your PayPal activity is going to make much of an impact on the root causes behind the Global Movement for Reparations..
(Also, if you're a billionaire or a central bank, you're probably why there needs to be a Global Movement for Reparations, but I don't think that's my core audience tbh)
If you, as a white person, want to give money to a black or brown person because you like their work or you think it's politically useful, that's great.

But if you're serious about wanting to support reparations, it can't be an individual thing. It's about movement building.
I think what's going on is that there a lot of young, socially conscious white people for whom the last few years have been a big wake up call. Which is good!

But they're not necessarily politically active - more that they're avid consumers of political content.
That means people who produce politically-flavoured social media content can equate supporting them with supporting the politics.

And it works because social media encourages us all to see individuals with a platform as totemic of the values we want to see in the world.
There's room for influencers to cynically exploit that, and come up with what is essentially intersectional Thatcherism.

The solution to that, imo, is better movement building. White people shouldn't just be supporters of antiracist struggle - they should be participants too!

More from For later read

This response to my tweet is a common objection to targeted advertising.

@KevinCoates correct me if I'm wrong, but basic point seems to be that banning targeted ads will lower platform profits, but will mostly be beneficial for consumers.

Some counterpoints 👇


1) This assumes that consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones.

This does not seem self-evident to me


Research also finds that firms choose between ad. targeting vs. obtrusiveness 👇

If true, the right question is not whether consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones. But whether they prefer *more* contextual ads vs *fewer* targeted

2) True, many inframarginal platforms might simply shift to contextual ads.

But some might already be almost indifferent between direct & indirect monetization.

Hard to imagine that *none* of them will respond to reduced ad revenue with actual fees.

3) Policy debate seems to be moving from:

"Consumers are insufficiently informed to decide how they share their data."

To

"No one in their right mind would agree to highly targeted ads (e.g., those that mix data from multiple sources)."

IMO the latter statement is incorrect.

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RT-PCR corona (test) scam

Symptomatic people are tested for one and only one respiratory virus. This means that other acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


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Even asymptomatic, previously called healthy, people are tested (en masse) in this way, although there is no epidemiologically relevant asymptomatic transmission. This means that even healthy people are declared as COVID


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राम-रावण युद्ध समाप्त हो चुका था। जगत को त्रास देने वाला रावण अपने कुटुम्ब सहित नष्ट हो चुका था।श्रीराम का राज्याभिषेक हुआ और अयोध्या नरेश श्री राम के नेतृत्व में चारों दिशाओं में शन्ति थी।
अंगद को विदा करते समय राम रो पड़े थे ।हनुमान को विदा करने की शक्ति तो राम में थी ही नहीं ।


माता सीता भी हनुमान को पुत्रवत मानती थी। अत: हनुमान अयोध्या में ही रह गए ।राम दिनभर दरबार में, शासन व्यवस्था में व्यस्त रहते थे। संध्या को जब शासकीय कार्यों में छूट मिलती तो गुरु और माताओं का कुशल-मंगल पूछ अपने कक्ष में जाते थे। परंतु हनुमान जी हमेशा उनके पीछे-पीछे ही रहते थे ।


उनकी उपस्थिति में ही सारा परिवार बहुत देर तक जी भर बातें करता ।फिर भरत को ध्यान आया कि भैया-भाभी को भी एकांत मिलना चाहिए ।उर्मिला को देख भी उनके मन में हूक उठती थी कि इस पतिव्रता को भी अपने पति का सानिध्य चाहिए ।

एक दिन भरत ने हनुमान जी से कहा,"हे पवनपुत्र! सीता भाभी को राम भैया के साथ एकांत में रहने का भी अधिकार प्राप्त है ।क्या आपको उनके माथे पर सिन्दूर नहीं दिखता?इसलिए संध्या पश्चात आप राम भैया को कृप्या अकेला छोड़ दिया करें "।
ये सुनकर हनुमान आश्चर्यचकित रह गए और सीता माता के पास गए ।


माता से हनुमान ने पूछा,"माता आप अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर क्यों लगाती हैं।" यह सुनकर सीता माता बोलीं,"स्त्री अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर लगाती है तो उसके पति की आयु में वृद्धि होती है और वह स्वस्थ रहते हैं "। फिर हनुमान जी प्रभु राम के पास गए ।