We the censored

I've been having to take a pretty long break from writing about political stuff due to mental health reasons. I won't apologize for it. We all have our limits. However given whats going on, I won't have the chance to write more unless I do it now. Limits be damned, we are facing what could be the end of the internet as we know it unless we stand up and speak about it. YouTube, Twitter, and a bunch of different online services are bending it's knees towards the UK (already passed it into law) and US Governments who are demanding that websites age restrict content that they deem inappropriate for minors. This in of itself isn't really bad until you take into account how it's being done and why. I wish people would stop thinking about the children since it's never actually about the children. No they are forcing you to submit ID verification in order to censor, track, and make lists of people who view content that governments don't like.

I don't want people under a certain age viewing my website because I am an adult. I say adult things, a lot of which should not be viewed by children. However I would never want to force id verification onto people. Not all adults have IDs or want it floating around online. Also I rated this website web14 because I feel like there are people who are under 18 who could benifit from some of it's pages. However neocities could be at risk soon so I might not get a choice in the matter.

This leads me to my next point. If we the people can't do anything to stop our governments putting these laws into place, we can try to stop the companies involved from complying. There is currently a boycott of YouTube going on. Twitter has been a lost cause ever since musk got ahold of it so you already should have been boycotting it too. However, Twitter has Musk behind it and he will keep it funded until he doesn't see a benifit to keeping it around. He uses it as his personal space to get buddy buddy with fascist nazi larpers. YouTube on the other hand, it's motivated by money. A lack of people being present and watching videos will hurt them unlike Twitter which is held together by nepo baby money and hate.

Why should you even care about any of this? Well if you are apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, you are now deemed pornographic. Yes they consider our existence pornographic. If you speak out against the genocide that Isreal is perpetrating in Palestine, you are now deemed hateful. Having a heart means you have hate according to them. If you drink anything with caffeine or some other drug that society doesn't care about being a drug (yes, caffeine is in fact a drug), they consider you an addict. If you talk about war or brutal conflicts in a non whitewashed way, they consider you violent. If you are any of these, these laws in place will effect you. It will also allow governments to keep close tabs on you and your actions. If you are not one of these people, you should still care because you know people that this will effect. There is a very high chance this will effect someone you love/care about. Hell, this will effect your ability to freely explore the web!

Join the boycotts when they pop up. Use self hosted services like nextcloud instead of massive online services from google and discord. Post videos you make to your own websites or even the selfhosted nextcloud server I was talking about. Try to push other people to do the same. We do not need google and other big online services in our lives if they are assisting in taking away our rights to a open and not censored web, one that allows us to stay informed and inform others.