But, if you feel the need to make up little conspiracies about everyone being hasbara, I’ll wish you well and move on with my day.

Just stating how it is. There is so much, rightful, support for Palestine here and it isn’t being suppressed.

Does the UK and Europe suppress protests? Absolutely. Look at what has happened with climate focused organisations. Look at what has happened with trans rights.

But, thankfully, that isn’t happening for Palestinian causes and even the explicitly anti-Israel protests against council use of Neptune Intelligence Computer Engineering go ahead without issue.

Not sure how talking about local and country-wide support for Palestine, and against the zionist genocide enacted by Israel, makes me supportive of Israel but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Yeah, Israel is shit, but unless you have a video for each of these protests being shut down in this way, that just isn’t the norm. Plenty of pro-Palestine protests and meetings here; outside Barclays, protesting specific businesses, sharing information in our most popular streets for tourism and shopping, musical protests at art galleries. Plenty going on, never even seen a police presence at these.

Not to say it isn’t happening, but trying to paint Europe as some pro-Zionist totality is weird.

“No, you have free speech as well, but it is also has its limits.”

Which is true. A lot of Europe learnt from World War II that certain types of speech should not be tolerated. In the rest of the article there are examples given - neo-Nazis for one. I am not particularly keen on tolerating the freedom of speech of Nazis or others that call for genocide and killing.

Still not happened to me yet, and that is in the UK which has the far more authoritarian Policing Bill looming over us. That doesn’t make as interesting a soundbite though.

Christ, this is such a stupid take. You’d think that someone who was around on the fediverse would have an inkling about just how many instances are based in the EU and Germany in particular.

Just because a country or userbase wants a degree of moderation and accountability, and doesn’t tolerate hate speech, doesn’t mean that views are censored. Basic Popperism stuff right there.

Why would an American be mentioning GDPR?

Yes, I was aware though under the impression of improving geospatial and mapping models. There are many ways in which we are now entwined into these systems and so it’s a matter of deciding, on a personal level, what you are comfortable with.

I am certainly not comfortable with the data going to Saudi Arabia where access to such is used for active suppression and harm.

Maybe it was a naive viewpoint at the time, but the climate of 2016 was very different to what it is now.

Yip, absolutely. Which is why I’m moving away from big tech products (one of the reasons I’m on Lemmy!).

Saudi Arabia is considerably worse though for LGBT rights so I don’t think there is any benefit in pushing whataboutism in this case. Both are awful, one is definitively more so.

Location data? Yeah, naively I was since I’d previously been fine with Niantic’s work with Ingress. Hindsight is 20/20 though.

Yes, absolutely, which is why I’m moving away from those services. This just speeds things up in the case of PoGo since Saudi Arabia has has been much, much more blatant and apparent with this in prior years (c.f. The tragic case of Eden Knight).

For myself, it is much more about the ties to Saudi Arabia given that the country and government aren’t all too happy with LGBT people.

Niantic and Google are (were?) not companies with very strong links to the Saudi Arabian government.

I’ve seriously reconsidered how much I use Google in recent months, but Google and Niantic aren’t owned by a government that is incredibly repressive and discriminatory of people like myself.

I’m a level 50 Pokémon Go player, who has played since release day, and that’s the app deleted.

Next up will be requesting removal of my data under GDPR.

That is because “the left” might have a few members that just so happen to be better read and have considered some of Popper’s writings.

On such a note, I presume these right-leaning opinions aren’t about the virtues of conservative fiscal policy?

There are many right wing views, views that are now sadly becoming more and more mainstream, that should not be tolerated. If right wingers had faced actual consequences when espousing their hatred of minorities, we might not be looking at a US government that wants to cozy up to Putin and distance their long term allies while stripping away the rights of US citizens.

They aren’t and, if they were, is that a problem?

Look at what right-wing echo chambers have led to. Look at what the “centrist” internet has led to.

Its 2025 and there are still people on the Fediverse convinced that the problem is the “left”. Utterly divorced from reality.

Ahh, phrenology is apparently scientific if you do it with AI?

I fucking hate this timeline

He’s somewhat gotten the point and it’s definitely not the worst reaction but be prepared for things not to be smooth and for the acceptance and understanding never to come. This may not be the case, but from my experience, those who state that they would rather you explore other options first will always have an alternative option that is perceived by them to be a better outcome.

Just be ready to cut this person out of your life. I really hope it doesn’t come to that for you, but I’ve had people like that which still fail to accept and understand after multiple diagnoses and over a decade later.