Freedom on the internet and fighting censorship
nhi_theuserof_this
Very different from my usual stuff, but this is important
What is currently happening (YouTube ID, Steam censorship, laws and bills, etc.)
Why everyone is affected (including you)
What is currently happening (Clippy protest, fake IDs being submitted, etc.)
Alternatives and what you can do
Conclusion
This post will be citing sources(wikipedia style) and include a lot of links to other resources more comprehensive than mine—I consider this to be a sort of “layman’s take” that the average person can use to get their foot in the door against internet censorship. If any section becomes too dense/lengthy for you, there's a TLDR at the end of each section
Preface: I'm American, so this blog post is involuntarily centered around the US variant of these issues--though I am trying my best to make it generally useful and informational to internet users as a whole.
What is currently happening - The current state of internet censorship
The order of events goes something like this:
Collective Shout [their about page] [public opinion on them] contacts payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and claims that they are supporting terrible things by being the payment processors for game platforms that host inappropriate games. (Collective shout is specifically vague about what counts as inappropriate.)
Late July, Steam and other game distribution services (such as itch.io) are pressured by payment processors into pulling NSFW games from their platforms. Steam and Itch.io blame the removal of these games on Mastercard and Visa pressuring them into it. [article on the topic] Mastercard makes a brief statement completely denying the claims. [Mastercard statement]
Late July, the UK's Online Safety Act goes into effect. This act is proposed as a means to protect children from seeing harmful content online[gov.uk page explaining the act], though functionally requires government ID from all internet users to use any of the internet. A demonstration of this is that ID is now required to use Spotify and Wikipedia in the UK, because according to this law, these platforms have the potential to harm children. (Australia has been floating around similar ideas in the past year IIRC)
The US and several other countries are now attempting to follow in these footsteps, and platforms like YouTube are rolling out age verification features. The US specifically is reattempting to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and push several new internet censorship acts
TLDR: Steam and Itch.io are being forced to delist NSFW games, and laws are being rolled out to force people to use government ID to prove they are adults while on the internet
Why everyone is affected (including you)
If the TLDR of the previous section wasn't clear enough, you are being monitored, and will be vulnerable to having your ID in a dataleak.
If you have to use your ID to verify your age, every platform you verify yourself on now has your government ID. YouTube specifically has conflicting statements regarding how long they hold your ID and the methods you are able to use to verify yourself.
Data leaks/data breaches are often and frequent--as of June there was a 16 billion password data leak. [Forbes article on the matter]
If there is a data leak and your ID is among the leaked information, you cannot change your birthday, you cannot change your face, you cannot easily change your address.
This isn't even touching on the fact that your government ID would then be connected to your internet use--big corporations and your government now know what podcasts you listen to, what videos you watch, what you yell into the internet void. You are no longer anonymous
TLDR: Your ID could be stolen if you share it, and you are no longer anonymous online.
What is currently happening - How people are fighting back
4chan users have been mass calling Mastercard and Visa with complaints against their pressuring Steam and Itch.io--among other things, there are hacktivist things going on that I'm not up to date about. Here's a link to a thread talking about Visa and Mastercard blocking purchases of NSFW games and how to report it for fraud. [It is a 4chan thread however]
People are using videogames to get around the facial recognition, using characters instead of their own faces to get around the age verification. [PCGamer article on it] I do not know if there are legal consequences to it, and recommend you self assess if you want to take that risk. (VPNs are also in use to prevent even being asked your age in the first place.)
A petition has been made to repeal the UK's Online Safety Act, and has passed half a million signatures [article about it] [the petition, which can still be signed]
People are calling and emailing their local senate and representatives to urge them to vote against and repeal these acts [Contact UK Parliment] [Contact your local representative (USA)]
People are changing their profile pictures to clippy over on YouTube [why clippy] [what the clippies do next], and making lots of noise on platform against these new updates CerosTV and Deep Humor specifically have been making frequent uploads recently discussing and combating the new age verification updates, as well as talking in more depth on this than I ever could [CerosTV] [Deep Humor]
I personally encourage spreading the word, contacting local government, and contacting companies that are involved in this.
TLDR: People are calling up local government and calling up all these companies to say their word against these laws and policies. People are also finding a variety of workarounds in the UK.
Alternatives and what you can do
Alternatives to YouTube - Patreon (paid), Nebula (paid), Glomble (free, donation run and currently small scale), Odysee (free and paid versions),
Alternatives to most anything - Analog media and piracy, as well as archives. The Internet Archive can be used to watch old shows and videos alongside everything else it archives such as webnovels and websites that no longer run. Analog media is generally important as well--if you can't hold it, you don't own it.
Call your local government [USA] [UK]
Research. KOSA isn't the only act the US is trying to pass regarding internet use, and surely the UK and US aren't the only countries going through this--look at what's going on where you live [Wikipedia article on internet censorship] [Wikipedia article on internet censorship in the US]
Spread the word, boost attention to these issues, tell your friends and family that the internet is being censored, keep the momentum going. Do research on your own as to why any censorship in the first place is bad--sure, delete the game that features murder, but why draw the line at that when you can delete all the games that feature it? Including the ones that specifically say, "Murder is bad, we are depicting it in a light that says it bad"
Review bomb platforms that are rolling out these features and boycott them until they're dealt with. All these platforms are worth less than one star if they want a picture of my drivers license, in my opinion.
TLDR: Research. Research research research. This and spreading the word, on top of calling up the government to say that you don't like these laws.
Conclusion
Remember when that youtuber got firebombed by the Australian government? The cartel? Both? Because both are equally viable options? Yes/No? Doesn't matter, [who firebombed friendlyjordies video] and [his channel]. He still makes videos and a lot of his recent ones are on the current state of politics in general.
Here is a collection of useful resources: [Fighting payment processors] [Terrible things Collective Shout has done] [Full copy of the US constitution] [Purchase 'banned' books as protest] [metaphor for why censoring ao3 is bad] [If you think you won't be affected, you will be] [Talk about the time TikTok was banned and Rednote was flooded with Americans(commentary on propaganda)] [anti youtube ai age verification petition] [dangerous rise of anti intellectualism] [help the YouTube boycott] [help libraries reddit thread] [help libraries, American org] [help libraries, different American org] [authors against book bans]
Censorship is very real, please do your part to keep the internet free, because as small as you think your voice is, it's a part of the tidal wave made up by the millions of us that use the internet.
This isn't a politics blog. I write fanfiction primarily and value fandom above all else. I am chronically online. This post should be reblogged to spread awareness, yes, but my blog as a whole is not consistently going to touch on these topics often, if ever again. Not in this capacity at least.