A Call to save Media from Censorship
Originally, I was going to talk about Collective Shout and NCOSE to help bring awareness about their corruption and their plans to destroy video games. But, the more I looked into them, the deeper I went into this rabbit hole to point I saw the devil in the eyes... in more ways than any human being should
So, instead I'm going to address the current state of affairs, and one way we can help protect pop culture and history. Why should we worried about protecting these things?
Well... let me tell you a story. Something that happened more than 6 decades ago:
An asian overlord, and his followers, set out to destroy what he called the "Four Olds"
To accomplish their objectives, the overlord ordered the descruction of millenia worth of culture, the erasure of traditional heroes, the demolition of temples and traditional architecture, the burning of books, and the suppression of dissenting voices.
The goal was to reshape society according to the "ideas" and the "narrative" of this overlord. All in the name of "progress"
You may wonder, what does something that happened half a century ago have to do with the current worldwide censorship?
Some people point out that there is no coincidence that Australia, UK, and other nations rolled out draconian censorship laws around the same time frame. But, even those who can see that are still not seeing the full picture
We cannot see the new supreme ruler of Australian Internet Melinda Tankard Reist as a separate entity from the tech MP from the UK, Peter Kyle. And we cannot separte these two from Senators Mike Lee and Marsha Blackburn, given they're currently trying to do the same in the US.
You have to see this as one single entity, one unique wild beast
Let's go step by step. The first attack was Collective Shout weaponizing payment processors to delete games. To avoid drawing too much unwanted attention, they just targeted adult games with "questionable" tags, to more or less seem consistent with their so-called "anti-porn" brand
Obviously, tens of thousands of gamers, most of which didn't even care about adult content, rang the alarm through the Internet. A female gamer even started to dig everything about them, and needless to say, we found out those australian ladies are diabolical. And that's an understatement! They even went as far as to defend "Cuties" (a movie that exploited hundreds of real underage girls)
A few days later, the UK rolled out the Online Safety Act, and just like critics warned, the so-called anti-porn law was used to censor more than just adult content.
Artists and photographers couldn't see their own work due to UK's restrictions...
...and the only way they could was by giving up their ID and/or personal information. Same applied to Spotify, with the added caveat of them deleting your account if you fail to prove you're not a minor
And it's not just the UK, it's the EU itself. So, I want you to pay attention to these details, because they will be important. Right now, this entity is now restricting both art and music, even if they have nothing to do with pornography.
But, there's more. Under these new laws, even access to Wikipedia is restricted. Let that sink in... an enormous online encyclopedia with lengthy and detailed articles about historical events. Therefor, censorship is also restricting people's access to knowledge and history.
Are you starting to see the big picture? Culture, art, music, history, all under attack in name of "safety".
But, what truly gave this entity away was its activities in the US. You guys probably know about the censorship duet introduced in the Senate:
The Screen Act, and the Kids Online Protection Act or KOSA (They're not even trying to hide they're copying the UK draconian law). If they pass, they'll be used to crackdown on freedom of expression and pop culture.
Still, this is not the huge reveal. The cherry on the top is another US bill known as "Block BEARD". A new pirate site block bill. At first glance, fighting piracy seems noble, and many people would back it up. But, if we add this factor to what's currently going on around the world, fighting piracy doesn't seem to be the real goal here.
Here's an example. There are movies and series from the 80's and 90's many people would be willing to pay for just to see. But, they're not available in either physical or digital formats. So, what do many of these people do...
In situations like this, pirates become the guardians of media and pop culture, preventing a lot of entertainment from becoming lost media.
If censorship forces all platforms to remove lawful content, pirates become the only way to access this content. But, what happens when even this venue gets blocked?
Now, one may say censorship will only affect adult content devoid of any "artistic value". But, here is when I go back to the beginnig of this war against the current "four". What does Collective Shout and NCOSE truly want aside from getting rid of nudity in the cases of attractive adults? (their defense of "Cuties" show they don't mind as long as they're real little kids)
Well, Melinda Tankard Reist already gave away part of their endgame...
...no more videogames. One of the cores of pop culture, gone. And with the help of Block BEARD, they can supress all ways to recover the content, turning all the media they seek to censor into lost media.
If we factor what the EU is doing with art, music, and knowledge/history, it's obvious they're taking a page from that asian overlord's playbook. The destruction of the current "four":
All in the name of "safety".
As a female gamer recently found out, this entity is making this law as broad as possible to cover nearly everything in media:
As of the writing of this article, NCOSE has been trying to gaslight people into thinking gamers want this censorship. Spoiler alert: they don't, and the people they got to speak in their behalf are not real gamers. That's why NCOSE is getting ratio'd in X as a result
Right now, gamers and weebs as well as developers and content creators are fighting this wild beast in any way they can. Wikipedia is engaging in some legal battles, and so are lawyers and other advocates for freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
What's the goal of this entity?
Well, the asian overlord mentioned at the beginning of this article holds the answer: the destruction of the four old was an attempt to reshape society by erradicating everything that came before, so the ideas and philosophy of the overlord could override the culture and norms of the people.
Or, in a way most pop culture fans could get: "As long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be"
The goal is to completely erase current culture and values from the collective consciousness, and replace them with the ones this entity sees fit.
So, where does that leave us?
Even if we win this war, there are things we must do to safekeep the culture this wild beast want to destroy. After all, as we saw when DEI/BRIDGE initiatives finally failed, this entity doesn't stop just because it failed a few times. It just keeps trying. If they fail here, they'll likely focus all of their efforts in eroding freedom of religion. But, that's a matter for another time
Right now, we're seeing the love child of North Korea and the Soviet Union on a near-global scale.
So, what we should do is the following:
Download as much media as possible: art, music, movies, series, books, documentaries, etc.
Make backups of everything. The more the better (Flash drives should be hidden in places or spaces nobody would look for)
If you happen to have rare physical media in the forms of books, employ or develop methods to hide them. It doesn't matter if it's a history book, a bible translation, or a manga volume. They all deserve to be preserved
Keep children as far as humanly possible from fan communities and online activity. This entity uses them as a weapon to destroy culture and knowledge, the less children interact with online content, the better
If we work together we can accomplish what brave people managed to do during and after the time of that asian overlord: preserve our culture
