US government uses Halo images in a call to 'destroy' immigration, Microsoft declines to comment
US government uses Halo images in a call to 'destroy' immigration, Microsoft declines to comment
I hate this fucking timeline.
I used to be a Halo fan, Microsoft ruined it.
I used to want to travel to the US, MAGA ruined it.
I used to have ambition for the future, a bunch of crusty old fucks ruined it.
I used to enjoy life. This incessant hatred and uglyness ruined it.
Find your thing, mute the rest.
Big wisdom in this.
Don't assume it is "checking out" from society or taking the easy way out. The news will find you, don't worry. Plus maintaining focus on your thing is something that can take significant effort.
I have noticed that the smaller I make my world, the happier I am. My free time goes into my family, friends, hobbies, and pets (which I guess is a big subset of the hobbies). I think a big part of the benefit is not just focusing on the people who can have the biggest effect on my life, but focusing on the people whose life I can improve the most with my involvement.
Our brains evolved to keep tabs on our clan or our village, not to monitor the events of the entire Earth in near real time, as if we're going to do anything with that information. In fact, I think that "need" to be informed is often just an addiction manufactured by the need to drive engagement to validate 24/7 news as a business model.
Feel this 100% as an American though.
... Did they not realize that the UNSC is an authoritarian fascist organization, and the Spartan program was originally aimed at fighting "rebels" who wanted to have control over the planets they lived on?
Literally the MC was kidnapped and experimented on to become a killing machine for the military junta for the express purpose of murdering colonists. No pay, no benefits, no end of contract.
Just like with Starship Troopers, satire like this goes flying over people's heads so low and fast, it breaks the sound barrier and loosens dentalwork.
also in-lore the UNSC nuked an entire planet because they couldn't stop a rebellion on it
https://www.halopedia.org/Far_Isle
Far Isle was a human colony planet, within Unified Earth Government space. The colony was the site of what is considered to be one of the United Nations Space Command's worst atrocities; in response to a rebellion in 2492 that they were unable to quell, the UNSC razed the colony using nuclear weapons, leaving no survivors.
Too bad the Arbiter wasn't around to council on that one.
Beneath the layers is Microsoft allowing a fascist regime, that Microsoft donated money to, to use their IP in facist promoting material.
I look forward to the day Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Apple get broken up.
I'm here for it. Is it okay if I throw Facebook and Twitter/X on the pyre? I've long considered them to be horsemen of the apocalypse.
Yes, Halo is what they believe, the plot of Halo is just standard 2000s South Park conservatism. Fascism is bad I guess but you libs will come crying to the SS for help when the space Muslims attack, so is it really bad?
Where the Trump-as-Master Chief post is merely cringeworthy, the Homeland Security message is flat-out dangerous. Comparing immigrants in the US to a parasitic alien life form that infects and annihilates advanced societies is not deeply offensive, it's also rooted in the worst of human history: As seen in the untermenschen of the Holocaust and "cockroaches" in Rwanda, to name a couple recent examples, dehumanizing the "other" so you can more easily inflict cruelty, injustice, and horrors upon them is hardly a new technique, and the US government's messaging was not subtle.
You might think that using imagery from one of its best known videogames in a call to "destroy" immigrants would prompt Microsoft to action, or at least to express some small modicum of disapproval. For now, at least, you would be wrong: Rather like Nintendo, which eagerly picks copyright fights it knows it can win but kept its mouth tightly zipped when Homeland Security used Pokémon to promote violent immigration raids, a representative told PC Gamer that "Microsoft does not have anything to share on this matter."
Unexpectedly good political commentary from checks notes PC Gamer
Also if Trump is any Halo character, he's the Prophet of Truth
Nah truth was actually well spoken and was a decent leader. He'd be regret.
Draft dodger say what?
Also, that flag would only have been valid for a week in 1889.
Even if I support the message: Fuck AI
Firework isn't consistently in front of the letters or in the background and switches between the two.
I was just noticing this before I read your comment.
Flooding the zone too stronk
Whenever theytry to make Pvt Bonespurs look “manly” it always looks so sad and desperate
It serves nicely as an opportunity to remind onlookers that Trump avoided military service using his supposed 'bone spurs' as a reason he was unfit, though. Nothing like reminding these idiots that their tough guy is that tough
Microsoft declines to comment
More like 'Microsoft approves of this imagery'
Silence is consent, be it from approval or cowardice, the outcome is the same.
I understand your outrage but silence is not consent. It is fear. Apply that phrase to any other situation where consent is required and that would be considered victim blaming.
Now M$ COULD be fine with this, we truly don't know, but they could also be afraid of how the administration would retaliate against them if they spoke up. I do agree with you when you say these companies are cowardly.
Lol, they willingly work with this fascist regime and others around the globe. Their silence is implicit consent, because a multi billion dollar company doesn't get to cry fear in the face of the governments they willingly work with.
Stop defending corpos, they'll gladly sell you to the government and tell your family they're suuuuuper sorry you got nabbed but there's nothing they can do.
long past the point of continuing to extend the courtesy they constantly deny everyone else
Always has
They are literally trying to turn Americans into the Covenant tho. Religious warriors.
The Covenant might be religious fanatics but they're actually capable of working with other religious fanatics, in mutual cooperation.
MAGAs are more like Species 8472, utterly hostile to anything that doesn't conform to their very narrow and ill informed worldview, even to the point of being hostile to potential allies, thus alienating them.
Also the SPARTAN program was pretty fucked, so this just looks bad in every way IMO.
He would probably approve of their crimes against children.
How many Microsoft executives are on the Epstein files?
Gates is on it for sure, i believe melinda split over something similar. and his shitck of trying to reinvent his own image, so the epstein files dont bite him in the end. his vaccine iniative is nothing more than scheme, since african countries has considered the vaccine as part of vaccine colonialism.
They said Microsoft executives though, which Gates is not.
The current government strategy of illegal use of copyrighted materials, often with the full understanding that the artist/IP owners will not consent to it should really have a harsher punishment to it. The DHS social media pages in particular keep using songs without artist permission because they know it will be taken down but by that point it doesn’t matter and they just steal another song. Given that the use of these songs implies tacit approval from the artist, this should absolutely count as the rights of the artists to free speech are being infringed upon.
Yeah it almost reads like Microsoft has endorsed the Trump administration and its marketing. Like a forced brand crossover. These things aid in the far right pipeline. Has young men thinking hating immigrants is as cool and mainstream as Halo.
Not almost, it is exactly that
Microsoft could have issued a note to the tone of "we were not consulted" but their vaporware spine did not amount to even that little
illegal use of copyrighted materials
It's quite literally the least bad thing they've done across two terms in office.
Given that the use of these songs implies tacit approval from the artist
Who seriously believes that? We're so beyond "Death of the Artist" at this point. FFS, I can't count the number of times I've heard the chorus line of Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" played full on patriotically, without a tinge of irony or self-reflection.
Who seriously believes that?
If an artist consents to the use of their song in a specific way, it’s not a matter of belief at all. It just is tacit approval. So when the government does this without consent, until the moment the artist responds, the implication is that the artist has approved it. Which isn’t as big a deal if a private entity does it, but it’s a much bigger deal when the federal government does it.
Probably because Trump gave them a $12 billion dollar tax break…
Edit: Billion
And all it cost them was $1,000,000 donated to the inauguration fund
Microsoft is a criminal organisation that thrives on corruption (no real action being taken with respect to anti trust proceedings is still relevant today).
Crime isn't only about someone stealing your phone, extracting many billion of dollars via oligopolistic methods of limiting competition and leaving people with no other option than to use their products (irrespective of price or feature considerations) is also criminal activity.
They are not going to fight the US administratorion on this.
The CEO of Microsoft is deep throating Trump regularly. The company won't do anything.
...So you separate children from their parents at the age of six and abuse them? Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate.
Instead of Mexican Joker we'll have Mexican Chief
Bootlicking cowards.
Homelander-ass post
Microsoft are a bunch of pussies also release the Epstein files!
Microsoft declined to comment
Microsoft was completely OK with this
of course they are. they aid genocide abroad, why wouldn’t they do it at home too?
Lmao that fat fuck could not fit in that suit.
Doesn’t matter. They’re cultivating and growing the alternate universe for far right suckers to live in.
Master Queef
It's piss colored, and that makes it accurate.
lmao they didn't even try to color correct the piss filter
Spartans were originally made to fight rebels.
also in-lore the UNSC nuked an entire planet because they couldn't stop a rebellion on it
https://www.halopedia.org/Far_Isle
Far Isle was a human colony planet, within Unified Earth Government space. The colony was the site of what is considered to be one of the United Nations Space Command's worst atrocities; in response to a rebellion in 2492 that they were unable to quell, the UNSC razed the colony using nuclear weapons, leaving no survivors.
It's another form of kissing the ring. They know it's bad for business but there's the implied threat that if they retaliate the FCC will grind the company to a hault.
So it's a way of reminding them of their loyalty and extending the president's influence beyond it's legal limits, very common tactic during the 1940's of a particular country's history.
Considering how dependent on M$ servers and products the 'murican government is, Microsoft could easily push for a MAD standoff against them
I'm sure if Satya Nadal were to become a target of ICE he'd have a comment.
But that would never happen because, you know, money.
I don't think so. It's unlikely, but not implausible. I don't think ICE have a list of "don't arrest" people, and not everyone knows what every CEO looks like. They might run into him randomly and just act on it.
I don't think Satya Nadal is going out in public like regular people, but it could still happen.
Uh let's be honest here, the UNSC was straight up losing the war against the covenant. The only way they survived was to ally with them.
I would threaten to not buy any more Halo games but I haven't bought one in like a decade so I recognize there's not much bite there.
Lawsuit incoming....?
From who? They funded the Epstein Ballroom.
Microsoft declining to comment may as well be a confession that they gave this shit the go-ahead
Probably. Trump will probably sue Microsoft for stealing his battle suit for video games.
Kinda out of topic, but why do all of those AI images have those yellowed filters?
Its called the piss filter.
Generative models (what is often referred to as AI) are opaque and it's almost impossible to understand exactly how something got added or why it's happening. But somewhere along the way models started to use it and no one looking at the output thought it was bad enough to not post.
Yeah all AI images have a bend towards warm yellow hues. So much that If you keep feeding the output of AI back into AI it just gets more yellow over time. It’s probably something to do with training sets taking in movies and social media posts where people prefer to show themselves in “golden hour”.
AI-caterpillar effect.
I assume that part of the prompt is tying back to WW2 era propaganda and a lot of those posters have yellowed with age by the time they made it into the dataset.
Same question. It's weird and instantly recognizable. I guess training data but I have never seen a real explanation about that.
Fuckin hell
Donald J Trumps Mjolnir armor would require a XXL waste system.
Oh my god, theyre gonna activate the ring!
Come to think of it, the Covenant have a lot in common with American brand millennial Evangelists. Leaning really hard on immanentising the eschaton.
There is still time to stop the key from turning.
Whenever you think the Turd Reich can't get more stupid and ridiculous they actually go and do it.
This is why while I love 40k, I have mixed feelings about there ever being a mainstream movie/show about it. I can already imagine MAGA wearing shirts saying "Purge the xeno scum"
Yoy mean Microcunts declined to comment
Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. I have SOOOOOO MUCH SHIT BLOCKED and I still have to see this invasive fucking shit fucking EVERYWHERE IN FUCKING LEMMY. fuck you fuck everyone fuck all this endless fucking fellatio you give this fucking twat. Just shut the fuck up and stop sharing the images and name and giving it attention. Holy fucking shit it's god damn inescapable.
Get so fucking fucked fucking assholes!!!!!
Man. I'm sorry you are experiencing reality. But like, maybe you should be aware of what is happening?
The fact that you are more mad about reading an article from PC gamer than that hundreds of thousands of people are being abducted says a lot about you.
The Master Chief needs to finish the fight. Fuck up the (Trump) covenant
Damn, now I want a mod that replaces all Covenant enemies with these fascists, and replace all their voice lines with actual quotes they've said.
You could do Stephen Miller for the Prophets, Trump for the Elites, and maybe Alex Jones or something for the Grunts.
You kill a grunt and it screams “they’re turning the frogs gay”
The DHS equating people being arrest &OR deported to fighting the flood was surreal. I had to do a double take.
I feel like one of the covenant prophets would have been more fitting what with how racist they are. (And sexist, I read the books)
The suit is jacking him off
I've been a fan of Halo since CE, so many memories and custom games, I got legendary editions and autographs from chief and cortanas va's, in no way are the white house' shit posts diminishing all of that, after all this is just the churned SLOP of some intern. I sure as shit won't be buying anything Halo or XBOX, spineless corporation..I saw this one post DHS about Destroying the Flood??
Guaranteed, he's going to count the Console Wars in his list of wars he's ended.
Confused, it was a reply to celebrating Halo on PS5, where does the ‘destroy immigration’ part come in?
Several hours after the White House post, the Department of Homeland Security put up its own Halo image with the message "Destroy the Flood," and a link to the ICE recruitment page.
Comparing immigrants in the US to a parasitic alien life form that infects and annihilates advanced societies is not deeply offensive, it's also rooted in the worst of human history: As seen in the untermenschen of the Holocaust and "cockroaches" in Rwanda, to name a couple recent examples, dehumanizing the "other" so you can more easily inflict cruelty, injustice, and horrors upon them is hardly a new technique, and the US government's messaging was not subtle.
so if you want to be a pedophile, senile, racist with a full diaper, play Halo… got it Microsoft
Can't be any shittier than the TV show. Probably will have Milltana as the AI.
FYI this is supposed to be shitty AI, not actually cool looking.
So, not just mafia style monopoly anymore. Now also supporting facism.